Miho Nonaka of Japan competes in the Women Boulder&Lead, Semifinal Lead of the Sport Climbing competitions in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, at the Le Bourget Sport Climbing Venue in Le Bourget, France, 08 August 2024. (Photo by Christophe Petit-Tesson/EPA/EFE)

Maria Ines Banegas portraying “La Pirata” (The Pirate) takes part in a human living statues contest in Buenos Aires, Argentina, September 24, 2016. (Photo by Enrique Marcarian/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)

In this July 20, 2019 photo, children play during a sports event organized by members of the Caracas FC soccer club, in Catia, one of the poorest slums in Caracas, Venezuela. When the Caracas Football Club plays, its supporters leave their ideological preferences and socioeconomic differences behind, joining together to support and take care of each other inside and outside the stadium. (Photo by Matias Delacroix/AP Photo)

A man carries his wife on his back as they make their way with their luggage along a flooded tunnel to catch their train, after heavy rainfall hit Jinhua, Zhejiang province, China, July 21, 2015. (Photo by Reuters/China Daily)

Revellers enjoy a night out in central Liverpool, northwest England, on December 30, 2020 before hightened Tier 3 restrictions closing hospitality venues, and bars indoor and outdoor socialising between households are imposed in the city amid surging cases of the novel coronavirus. (Photo by Oli Scarff/AFP Photo)

A woman is helped out of the wrecked car of a train that derailed at the station of Pioltello Limito, on the outskirts of Milan, Italy, Thursday, January 25, 2018. Italian officials said that the commuter train derailed in northern Italy, killing some people, seriously injuring 10 and trapping others heading into Milan at the start of the work day. (Photo by AP Photo/Stringer)

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi attends the inauguration ceremony of Jacob Zuma on May 9, 2009 in Pretoria, South Africa. Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma is South Africa's fourth President since the end of apartheid. (Photo by Foto24/Gallo Images/Getty Images)