English National Opera presents Georges Bizet's “Carmen” at the London Coliseum in London on October 6, 2025. (Photo by Jane Hobson/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Most people know Nikon as a purveyor of pro and consumer-grade digital cameras. But the company's expertise with optics bleeds over into related markets – it's one of the science community's major suppliers of microscopes. And each year the company asks the community to send it some of their favorite images of tiny objects. A panel of scientists and journalists have chosen the best of this past year's submissions, which Nikon has placed on its Small World site.

Photo: Honorable Mention. “Snow crystal, illuminated with colored lights (5x)”. (Photo by Dr. Kenneth Libbrecht, California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Department of Physics, Pasadena, California, USA)

A horse is paraded during the Arabian Horse Festival at the Bait al-Arab in Kuwait City on February 5, 2022. (Photo by Yasser Al-Zayyat/AFP Photo)

Picture dated May 1st 2022 shows Cambridge University students enjoying the Caesarian Sunday party on Jesus Green in Cambridge, United Kingdom. Thousands of Cambridge University students descended on a city centre park yesterday (Sun) as their annual summer party took place officially for the first time in three years. (Photo by Bav Media)

Recruits carry ammunition during a military training at a firing range in the Rostov-on-Don region in southern Russia, on October 4, 2022. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that the military has recruited over 200,000 reservists as part of a partial mobilization launched two weeks ago. (Photo by AP Photo/Stringer)

Jalokun Nifemi, wearing an outfit made from recycled newspapers, waits back stage before a “trashion show” in Sangotedo Lagos, Nigeria, Saturday, November 19, 2022. (Photo by Sunday Alamba/AP Photo)

A frontline worker in personal protective equipment (PPE) sprays a flammable liquid on a burning funeral pyre of a man who died from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), at a crematorium on the outskirts of Mumbai, India, April 15, 2021. (Photo by Francis Mascarenhas/Reuters)

Yaroslava Mahuchikh, of Ukraine, makes an attempt in the women's high jump qualification at the the European Athletics Championships in Rome, Friday, June 7, 2024. (Photo by Andrew Medichini/AP Photo)