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)

Summer Zhai and Vicky He, dressed as characters from the anime "Love Live!", rest on stairs during day two of New York Comic Con in Manhattan, New York, October 9, 2015. The event draws thousands of costumed fans, panels of pop culture luminaries and features a sprawling floor of vendors in a space equivalent to more than three football fields at the Jacob Javitz Convention Center on Manhattan's West side. (Photo by Andrew Kelly/Reuters)

One of the two wooden rafts of the Kon-Tiki II expedition is prepared at the port of Callao prior to the departure to Pascua island in Chile, in Callao, Peru, October 30, 2015. Fourteen men from various parts of the world set out on rafts to commemorate the Norwegian navigator Thor Heyerdahl expedition 68 years ago. The original raft crossed the Pacific Ocean from South America to the Polynesian Islands. This rafts are a replica of ships used 6,000 years ago, but will be equipped with solar panel. (Photo by Mariana Bazo/Reuters)

English TV personality Chloe Ferry joins friends Kimberly Hart-Simpson (Coronation Street) Sophie Kasaei, Abbie Holborn, Bethan Kershaw and Tahlia Chung (Geordie Shore) to LooseFest 22 on July 30, 2022. LooseFest is one of the largest music festivals ever to take place in the North of England and is located on the city of Newcastle's famous Town Moor. Pictured: Chloe Ferry, Kimberly Hart-Simpson, Sophie Kasaei. (Photo by Terry Blackburn/Backgrid UK)

Believers bathe in the icy water during a traditional Epiphany at the Church of the Holy Trinity in Ostankino near TV Tower in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, January 18, 2023. Across Russia, the devout and the daring are observing the Orthodox Christian feast day of Epiphany by immersing themselves in frigid water through holes cut through the ice of lakes and rivers. Epiphany celebrates the revelation of Jesus Christ as the incarnation of God through his baptism in the River Jordan. (Photo by Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP Photo)

A Canadian actress, pop singer and song writer Jessica Lowndes (she is best known for her role as Adrianna Tate-Duncan on TV series 90210) Jessica Lowndes attends a party at the Sugar Hut at Sugar Hut on May 4, 2012 in London, England. (Photo by Danny Martindale)

A dinosaur robot produced by Tyco Electronics Japan G.K. is controlled by a smartphone at CEATEC (Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies) Japan 2014 held at at Makuhari Messe in Chiba, east of Tokyo, Japan, 07 October 2014.With a Sharp Aquos ZETA mobile phone model, users can make the 6.5-meter (21 feet, 4 inches) long, 2.1-meter (6 feet, 11 inches) tall dinosaur robot to walk forward and backward, jump, move its head, hands and legs up and down, left and right, open and close its mouth by touching the screen panel and make it bark by shaking the handheld. (Photo by Kimimasa Mayama/EPA)

Electric cars sit charging in a parking garage at the University of California, Irvine January 26, 2015. “The Irvine Smart Grid Demonstration”, a $79 million project funded half by federal stimulus money and half by Edison and partners like UC Irvine, was launched in 2010. The $12 billion utility's research team Southern California Edison is testing everything from charging electronic vehicles via cell phone to devices that smooth out the power created by rooftop solar panels. Those are some of the roughly 60 projects in the works at Edison's Advanced Technology division. It has a small $19 million annual budget, but its influence far exceeds that. (Photo by Lucy Nicholson/Reuters)