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)

LA Coroners leave the Beverly Hilton Hotel possibly carrying the body of the singer Whitney Houston in the early hours of February 12, 2012 in Los Angeles, CA. Singer and film star Whitney Houston aged 48 has died in her hotel room at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. (Photo/Toby Canham/Getty Images)

People watch as lava flows from an eruption of a volcano on the Reykjanes Peninsula in southwestern Iceland late on Monday, March 29, 2021. Iceland's latest volcano eruption is still attracting crowds of people hoping to get close to the gentle lava flows. The eruption in Geldingadalur, near Iceland's capital Reykjavik, is not seen as a threat to nearby towns and the slow flows mean people can get close to action without too much harm. (Photo by Marco Di Marco/AP Photo)

A racegoer reacts to picking a winner in the first race on the third day of the Royal Ascot horserace meeting, which is traditionally known as Ladies Day, at Ascot, England Thursday, June 17, 2021. (Photo by Alastair Grant/AP Photo)

American actress Kathryn Newton during the Chloe Ready to Wear Fall/Winter 2024-2025 fashion show as part of the Paris Fashion Week on February 29, 2024 in Paris, France. (Photo by Victor VIRGILE/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

The Rakotzbrücke bridge in the autumnal azalea and rhododendron park in Kromlau in the district of Görlitz, Saxony near the state border with Brandenburg on November 7, 2023. More than four million euros have been invested in the restoration and reconstruction of this Lusatian landmark in recent years. The complex includes the listed group of Rakotzbrücke bridges and the so-called organ made of basalt. Friedrich Hermann Rötschke had these built between 1842 and 1875. (Photo by Patrick Pleul/dpa)

Women with red paint on their bodies participate in a rally to mark International Women's Day, in Bogota, Colombia on March 8, 2023. (Photo by Mahe Elipe/Reuters)