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 lynx cub that followed a villager in the forest, is fed by a mother and her son for 2 days at the Koyulhisar district of Sivas, Turkiye on October 4, 2023. After 2 days, the lynx cub was taken under protection by the Sivas Department of Nature Conservation and National Parks teams. (Photo by Serhat Zafer/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

A man smokes marijuana during a demonstration in support of the legalization of marijuana in Medellin, May 2, 2015. (Photo by Fredy Builes/Reuters)

People take pictures of huge waves crash on the Viavelez seafront in the northern Spanish region of Asturias January 2, 2016. (Photo by Eloy Alonso/Reuters)

Deal or New Deal, Season 2. Pictured: Meghan Markle, 2006. (Photo by Paul Drinkwater/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)

An Afghan girl carries washed clothes on her head in Bamiyan, Afghanistan on March 2, 2023. (Photo by Ali Khara/Reuters)

Florida delegates dance on Day 2 of the RNC in Milwaukee on July 16, 2024. (Photo by Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)