A shopkeeper wears a face mask as a precaution against the coronavirus waits for customers at a market in Bengaluru, India, Friday, November 20, 2020. India's total number of coronavirus cases since the pandemic began has crossed 9 million. Nevertheless the country's new daily cases have seen a steady decline for weeks now and the total number of cases represents 0.6% of India's 1.3 billion population. (Photo by Aijaz Rahi/AP Photo)

The Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft carrying the crew formed of Kathleen Rubins of NASA, Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov of the Russian space agency Roscosmos blasts off to the International Space Station (ISS) from the launchpad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan on October 14, 2020. (Photo by Russian space agency Roscosmos/Handout via Reuters)

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)

Waves hit the seawall during heavy seas and high winds in Dawlish in south west Britain, February 2, 2017. (Photo by Toby Melville/Reuters)

Almost two years old male baby orang-utan Dalai looks on in the zoo in Dresden, Germany, 30 March 2017. Dalai was born to mother Daisy in June 2016. (Photo by Filip Singer/EPA)

A man pours water on his camel on a hot summer day in Ahmedabad, India, May 18, 2017. (Photo by Amit Dave/Reuters)

A man carries a bag on his back in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, January 26, 2016. According to traffic police, over 2.9 billion trips will be made around China during the 40-day Spring Festival travel rush, which started on January 24. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

A house burns as the Butte fire rages through Mountain Ranch, California September 11, 2015. Evacuation orders were expanded to thousands of homes in northern California's Sierras on Friday as the rapidly spreading wildfire roared for a third day through drought-parched timber and brush, threatening mountain communities. (Photo by Noah Berger/Reuters)