Olympic gold medalist Arisa Trew of Australia competes on the vert ramp during the second day of “Exposure 2025” an annual all-girls skateboarding contest in Encinitas, California, U.S., November 2, 2025. (Photo by Mike Blake/Reuters)

An Iranian athlete warms up prior to the start of the women's karate competition, made-up of clubs and teams from around the Tehran province, in Tehran on November 6, 2025. Some 230 participants, including 5-year-old girls, took part in the competition, with team's deriving only from the Tehran province taking part. (Photo by Atta Kenare/AFP Photo)

English actress’ Shirley Eaton’s performance in Goldfinger in 1964 made her the ultimate sеx symbol. (Photo by Kobal Collection/Rex Features)

Horse riding along the beach at Frinton-on-Sea in Essex, UK on Sunday, November 30, 2025 as the sun was setting, Becky James riding Ayla. Photo by Kevin Jay/Picture Exclusive)

South African singer Tyla performs at the 2024 MTV Europe Music Awards at Manchester Co-op Live in Manchester, Britain, on November 10, 2024. (Photo by Phil Noble/Reuters)

Olaf Niess catches swans on the river Alster near the town hall in Hamburg, Germany, 17 November 2015. The Alster swans are moving to their ice-free winter quarters on the Eppendorf Muehlenteich millpond until spring. (Photo by Bodo Marks/EPA)

A man takes photo of his colleague with a mobile phone on the burning oil tanker at the ship-breaking yard in Gaddani, Pakistan, November 2, 2016. Reports state that at least eighteen workers were killed and more than 100 were wounded in a blast at Gaddani ship breaking yard near Karachi on 01 November. Initial reports suggest the blast occurred when a gas cylinder exploded inside an oil tanker being broken up for scrap. (Photo by Akhtar Soomro/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)