A visitor carries a cat wearing sunglasses during the Malaysia's Pet Exhibition in Kuala Lumpur on June 23, 2023. (Photo by Mohd Rasfan/AFP Photo)

Students wearing mask hold hands to surround the St. Stephen's Girls' College in Hong Kong, Monday, September 9, 2019. Thousands of demonstrators in Hong Kong urged President Donald Trump to “liberate” the semiautonomous Chinese territory during a peaceful march to the U.S. Consulate on Sunday, but violence broke out later in the business and retail district as police fired tear gas after protesters vandalized subway stations, set fires and blocked traffic. (Photo by Kin Cheung/AP Photo)

A police officer adjusts her helmet on the sidelines of an anti-government protest against food scarcity at soup kitchens and economic reforms proposed by President Javier Milei, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, May 7, 2024. (Photo by Natacha Pisarenko/AP Photo)

Ex-Playboy model Brittny Button (nee Ward) poses in sеxy photoshoot, 2022. The American sizzler, 31, married to British Formula One ace Jenson Button, shows off her fabulous physique in stylish photography campaign. The couple, who married in March 2022, have two children together. (Photo by Jean-Claude Vorgeack/Capture Media Agency)

British rock singer, musician, one of the founders and member of the band Black Sabbath, which had a significant influence on the emergence of such musical styles as hard rock and heavy metal Ozzy Osbourne, pictured at home two weeks after the birth of his baby boy Jack. 25th November 1985. The heavy metal star, who fronted Black Sabbath before a long solo career, has died aged 76 in Birmingham, UK on July 22, 2025. (Photo by Mike Maloney/Mirrorpix via Getty Images)

A woman wearing a traditional "mantilla" dress takes part in an open-air mass to celebrate Madrid's patron saint La Almudena Virgin in Madrid, Spain, November 9, 2015. (Photo by Susana Vera/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)