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)

A volunteer of District Magistrate (DM) office dressed as Yamraj, or Hindu God of death, stops people for not wearing masks, amidst the spread of the coronavirus(COVID-19) disease, in New Delhi, India, September 28, 2020. (Photo by Anushree Fadnavis/Reuters)

A woman uses protection masks to cover her face as protestors from the Million Mask March and anti lockdown protesters demonstrate, amid the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak in London, Britain on November 5, 2020. (Photo by Henry Nicholls/Reuters)

Dancers from The Royal Ballet perform beside the Regent's Canal in London on August 30, 2020, one of three performances they put on daily on weekends to experience performing in front of a live socially-distanced audience. (Photo by Isabel Infantes/AFP Photo)

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)

Spectators watch Austria's Stefan Kraft in action during the Viessmann FIS Ski Jumping World Cup Willingen on January 31, 2021 in Willingen, Germany. (Photo by Wolfgang Rattay/Reuters)

A demonstrator smashes a shop window during a protest condemning the arrest of rap singer Pablo Hasél in Barcelona, Spain, Saturday, February 20, 2021. A fifth night of peaceful protests to denounce the imprisonment of a Spanish rap artist once more devolved into clashes between police and fringe group members who set up street barricades and smashed storefront windows in Barcelona. (Photo by Joan Mateu/AP Photo)