Houseboats and charter boats are docked in the ice in the harbor at Fischerhof Eldenburg in the Mecklenburg Lake District, northern Germany, Wednesday, February 19, 2025. (Photo by Jens Büttner/dpa)

A visitor stands near an art installation portraying China's President Xi Jinping, U.S. President Donald Trump and Russia's President Vladimir Putin during the ARTSUBS exhibition in Surabaya, Indonesia on August 2, 2025. (Photo by Juni Kriswanto/AFP 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)

Tsunami, an eleven year old female Sumatran Orangutan eats a fruit platter during her birthday celebration at the National Zoo Ape Center in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Thursday, December 31, 2015. (Photo by Manan Vatsyayana/AFP Photo)

A woman walks past a damaged pagoda after an earthquake in Bagan, Myanmar August 25, 2016. Rescue workers surveyed the damage Thursday after a powerful earthquake shook Myanmar, killing at least four people and damaging 185 ancient Buddhist pagodas in the former capital of Bagan, a major tourist site. (Photo by Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters)

A couple enjoys the view of the ethnographic and amusement center Kremlin in Izmailovo reflected in the Serebryano-Vinogradnii lake in Moscow, Russia on July 30, 2017. (Photo by Mladen Antonov/AFP Photo)

This aerial photo taken on March 2, 2023 shows bulldozers working to build high-standard farmlands in Pucheng County, southeast China's Fujian Province. A new round of high-standard farmlands building is underway in Pucheng County in preparation of spring ploughing. (Photo by Xinhua News Agency/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Internationally acclaimed German three-dimensional artist Manfred Stader adds finishing touches to his artwork in Cape Town, South Africa on 21 November 2010. Stader created this masterpiece to celebrate the opening of Speedo's first dedicated concept store in Africa. (Photo by Foto24/Gallo Images/Getty Images)