Irish dancer Holly Venables on day three of the Cheltenham Racing Festival at Prestbury Park in Cheltenham, England on March 13, 2025. (Photo by David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile)

The rising sun is framed between the lighthouses at the end of the pier in Whitby on the Yorkshire coast on March 18, 2025. (Photo by Andrew McCaren/London News Pictures)

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)

Soldiers, including two recruits who have brought some chickens, at Victoria prepare to board the train for the battle front. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Actors, clowns and mime artists celebrate “Humor Day” in St Petersburg on April 1, 2022. April 1 is also referred to as “April Fool’s Day” and is a time for playing pranks in the country. (Photo by Anatoly Maltsev/European Press Photo Agency)

Polar frame, by Dmitry Kokh, Russia. When Kokh’s boat approached the small island of Kolyuchin in the Russian High Arctic, which had been abandoned by humans since 1992, he was surprised to spot movement in one of the houses. Binoculars revealed polar bears – more than 20 in total – exploring the ghost town. Dmitry used a low-noise drone to document them. (Photo by Dmitry Kokh/Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2022)

A calico sits in its enclosure and suns itself in Hessen, Germany on May 28, 2021. The Opel Zoo presents a walk-in Madagascar aviary for caltas and varis. The primate species is native to Madagascar and is threatened with extinction. (Photo by Andreas Arnold/dpa)

A man rides a skateboard at Radical Park in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, June 24, 2021. Hundreds of joggers, dog walkers, skateboarders and picnicking families come each day. (Photo by Bruna Prado/AP Photo)