LA-based model Tori Brixx at the BET Awards 2023 held at Microsoft Theater on June 25, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Broadimage/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Motocross riders compete on the beach on October 15, 2023 in Weymouth, United Kingdom. The motocross event, which first came to the town in 1984, organised by Weymouth and Portland Lions Club in association with Purbeck Motocross Club, sees over 300 riders compete over a course along Weymouth beach. (Photo by Finnbarr Webster/Getty Images)

A mischievous squirrel chases a turkey in a garden in Medford, Wisconsin in the second decade of January 2024. The garden’s owner, artist Cheryl Plautz, said the squirrels chase the birds “for fun”. (Photo by Cheryl Plautz/Solent News)

Swedish actress Rebecca Ferguson attends the World Premiere of “Dune: Part Two” in London's Leicester Square on February 15, 2024 in London, England. (Photo by Hannah McKay/Reuters)

Rebecca Sramkova of Slovakia reacts during her first round match against Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine at the Wimbledon tennis championships in London, Monday, July 1, 2024. (Photo by Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP Photo)

British visitors wearing Bavarian costumes walk ahead the opening of the traditional Bavarian Oktoberfest festival at the Theresienwiese in Munich, southern Germany, on September 20, 2014. Germany's world-famous Oktoberfest kicks off with millions of revellers set to soak up the frothy atmosphere in a 16-day extravaganza of lederhosen, oompah music and, of course, beer. (Photo by Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/AFP Photo/DPA)

U.S. Park Police work to keep people away from the area surrounding the Washington Monument after a 5.8 magnitude earthquake struck the east coast August 23, 2011 in Washington, DC. Police officers said that unidentified material had fallen off the Washington Monument as a result of the earthquake. All the monuments and buildings along the National Mall have been evacuated and closed. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

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)