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)

This plane looks like it's bound for the moon as it shoots across the sky. Photographer Sebastien Lebrigand was impressed he could even see the lights on the jet's wings in this stunning silhouette. (Photo by Sebastien Lebrigand/Solent News)

Mariana Sousa, student of the Ballet Paraisopolis, warms up during a rehearse in Paraisopolis favela, outskirts of Sao Paulo, Brazil on August 27, 2020, amid the new coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. The 200 ballet students of Paraisopolis, the second largest favela in Sao Paulo, restarted rehearsals after five months with a coreography about a police operation that put their community in mourning last year. (Photo by Nelson Almeida/AFP Photo)

People enjoying the hot weather on Brighton beach in Sussex, England on August 7, 2020. (Photo by Stephen Lock/i-Images)

Majesty Davis, 3, cries while visiting Santa Claus, who sits behind a plexiglass divider due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, at the Willow Grove Park Mall in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, U.S. November 14, 2020. (Photo by Mark Makela/Reuters)

Mortuary workers take off their protective clothing at the entrance of a building decorated with a Christmas tree, after removing the body of person who allegedly died of COVID-19 in Barcelona, Spain, Wednesday, December 23, 2020. (Photo by Emilio Morenatti/AP Photo)

Musicians in Father Frost costumes ride along Nevsky Avenue on the Dedmorobus (portmanteau of “Father Frost” and “bus”) musical bus to entertain citizens ahead of New Year celebrations in St Petersburg, Russia on December 28, 2020. (Photo by Alexander Demianchuk/TASS)

A Russian female military cadet marches in front of the Eternal Flame at the WWII memorial complex at Poklonnaya Hill in Moscow on February 17, 2021, during a rehearsal for the upcoming February 23's Defender of the Fatherland Day. (Photo by Alexander Nemenov/AFP Photo)