In this photo taken Sunday, May 6, 2012, Denis Lutskevich, left, is detained by police during an opposition rally in Bolotnaya Square in Moscow. The former naval cadet and first-year student, 21-year-old Lutskevich was attending his first protest when he was detained, and is still in prison Monday May 6, 2013, on the first year anniversary of the protest. (Photo by Pavel Golovkin/AP Photo)

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)

An anti-government demonstrator argues with a Bolivarian National Police officer during a march toward the headquarters of the national electoral body, CNE, in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, May 18, 2016. Opposition protesters were blocked from reaching the CNE as they demand the government allow it to pursue a recall referendum against Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro. (Photo by Fernando Llano/AP Photo)

In this Wednesday, July 20, 2016 photo, a child carries kettles through a flooded street with a woman in Tianjin, China. China says dozens of people have died or gone missing since Monday in massive floods across the country's north. (Photo by Chinatopix via AP Photo)

People take pictures of the sunset in Berlin October 27, 2014. (Photo by Hannibal Hanschke/Reuters)

The waning moon sets behind leafless sumac trees on a crisp, clear morning, Thursday, December 15, 2016, in Portland, Maine. Much of the northern Mid-Atlantic and Northeast will stay cold for the next couple of days as the arctic air remains stuck over the northern Appalachians, the National Weather Service said. (Photo by Robert F. Bukaty/AP Photo)

People and sea-gulls bathe in the sea as the sun goes up with red colors in Stralsund close to the baltic sea island of Rügen, on early November 23, 2016. (Photo by Stefan Sauer/AFP Photo/DPA)

A Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) female fighter adjusts a mortar in northern Deir al-Zor province ahead of an offensive against Islamic State militants, Syria February 21, 2017. (Photo by Rodi Said/Reuters)