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)

A worshipper prays during the Friday prayer at the Great Mosque in Ouagadougou, on January 28, 2022. Burkina Faso, the scene of a military coup on Monday, was suspended from the Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on Friday, following a virtual summit of the organization whose heads of state will meet again on February 3 in Accra to reassess the situation in this country. (Photo by Olympia de Maismont/AFP Photo)

Grand Blanc junior Sarah Hartwell chants “Get her out!” as more than 100 students, retired teachers and other members of the community march on Monday, May 24, 2021 on the sidewalk along Saginaw Street outside of Grand Blanc High School, protesting Amy Facchinello, a school board member accused of believing in the QAnon conspiracy. About 25 counter-protesters showed to argue that Facchinello was duly elected and has her right to free speech. (Photo by Jake May/AP Photo)

A group of Maasai women march while dancing traditional songs during a Maasai cultural festival in Sekenani, on June 10, 2023. The Maasai people are a Nilotic ethnic group inhabiting Kenya and northern Tanzania. The Maasai cultural festival is a popular gathering and celebration of the Maasai cultural heritage and aims to showcase the community's traditional activities and fashion. (Photo by Luis Tato/AFP Photo)

Actors and figurants participate in the staging of the Live Stations of the Cross and Procession of the Dead Lord during the celebration of the easter in the Medieval Village of Ourem, Portugal, 15 April 2022. The Live Stations of the Cross is dramatized by about 100 actors and extras from the local community, besides the requalification of the Castle and Palace of the Counts of Ourem that will provide a new setting, a new protagonist will embody Jesus Christ along the 14 stations of the Stations of the Cross. (Photo by Paulo Cunha/EPA/EFE)

David Pariken 46, of the indigenous Maasai community, roasts meat at the inaugural Maa Cultural Week dubbed The Maa-Festival aimed to promote peace, tourism, and cultural exchange as the wildebeests (Connochaetes taurinus) make their annual cross border migration at the Sekenani village, in the Maasai Mara National Reserve, in Narok County, Kenya on August 22, 2023. (Photo by Thomas Mukoya/Reuters)

Young dancers practice by the Kenya – Uganda railway line, prior to the start of a Christmas ballet event in Kibera, the Kenyan capital's largest slum, Friday, December 15, 2023. The ballet project is run by Project Elimu, a community-driven nonprofit that offers after-school arts education and a safe space to children in Kibera. (Photo by Brian Inganga/AP Photo)

A child wearing a costume runs up the steps during Purim celebrations at the Coral Temple synagogue in Bucharest, Romania, Wednesday, March 20, 2019. Children put on fancy costume dress joining dozens of believers from Romania's Jewish community who attended a Purim service to celebrate the Jews' salvation from genocide in ancient Persia, as recounted in the Book of Esther. (Photo by Vadim Ghirda/AP Photo)