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)

Creations by fashion designer Guo Pei, one of China's leading couture artists, are seen on display during the “Guo Pei: Fashioning Imagination” exhibition at the M+ art museum in Hong Kong on September 17, 2024. (Photo by Peter Parks/AFP Photo)

Anti government protesters splash water on each other as they celebrate the traditional Songkran new year festival during a protest in Bangkok, Thailand, 13 April 2022. (Photo by Diego Azubel/EPA/EFE)

A German fan cheers prior to the Group A match between Germany and Scotland at the Euro 2024 soccer tournament in Munich, Germany, Friday, June 14, 2024. (Photo by Antonio Calanni/AP Photo)

Model Isabeli Fontana poses after the 2014 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show in London December 2, 2014. (Photo by Luke MacGregor/Reuters)

The East and West piers at Whitby in United Kingdom were not built for pleasure like many others but to provide shelter for ships from the storms and currents of the North Sea. Picture date: Thursday, March 23, 2023. (Photo by Andrew McCaren/London News Pictures)

Competitors take part in the annual Mud Madness event at Foymore Lodge on April 22, 2018 in Portadown, Northern Ireland. The adult version of the event includes two laps of an 8km course through 25 obstacles while the kids event is run over 2kms. The race is in it's eleventh year and is sponsored by McVities Jaffa Cakes and event charity partner Marie Curie together with other numerous charities and fundraising groups. (Photo by Charles McQuillan/Getty Images)

American singer/songwriter Ashley Nicolette Frangipane, known professionally as Halsey arrives at Playboy's Midsummer Night's Dream at the Marquee Nightclub at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas on July 29, 2018 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Gabe Ginsberg/Getty Images)