American singer-songwriter and actress Renee Rapp arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscars party after the 97th Academy Awards, in Beverly Hills, California, U.S., March 2, 2025. (Photo by Danny Moloshok/Reuters)

(L-R) Giselle, Ningning, Karina and Winter of South Korean girl group aespa attend the 2025 Billboard Women in Music at YouTube Theater on March 29, 2025 in Inglewood, California. (Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images)

South Korean rapper Jennie performs at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, California, U.S., April 13, 2025. (Photo by Daniel Cole/Reuters)

A squirrel fights for its life in the bill of a great blue heron at the Mission Trails Regional Park in California in the second decade of April 2025. (Phoot by Decker Nomura/Solent News & Photo Agency)

American singer Sabrina Carpenter performs onstage at the 2024 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival at Empire Polo Club on April 12, 2024 in Indio, California. (Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for Coachella)

A French bulldog named Rocket takes part in the annual Surf Dog Surf-A-Thon in Del Mar, California, on Sunday, September 7, 2025. (Photo by K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune/Getty Images)

American drag queens Laganja Estranja and Morphine Love Dion perform at OUTLOUD Music Festival at 2024 WeHo Pride on May 31, 2024 in West Hollywood, California. (Photo by Sarah Morris/WireImage)

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)