A man presents a self-made robot that local media reported is able to carry a person, in Heihe, Heilongjiang province, China, April 5, 2017. (Photo by Reuters/China Daily)

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)

This undated photo provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows two island foxes in Channel Islands National Park, Calif. Three fox subspecies native to California's Channel Islands were removed from the list of endangered species Thursday, August 11, 2016, in what federal officials have called the fastest recovery of any mammal listed under the Endangered Species Act. (Photo by Chuck Graham/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service via AP Photo)

A passenger aircraft passes over a residential house as it prepares to land at London Heathrow Airport in west London on October 17, 2016. Britain's government is considering whether to approve a third runway at Heathrow or expand air capacity in southeast England at another airport such as London Gatwick. (Photo by Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP Photo)

Students training to be flight attendants hold books on their heads, chopsticks in their mouths, and papers in between their knees, as they take part in a standing posture practice at a vocational school in Shijiazhuang, Hebei province, China May 4, 2017. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

Marieke van der Meer from the Netherlands works on her sculpture “Flora” at the sand sculpture show in Binz on Ruegen island, Germany, 09 March 2016. With the motto “Fascination Nature”, 50 sand artists have created oversized sculptures. The sculptors use 16,000 tons of special sand that is pressed into big blocks first and then formed. The 7th sand sculpture show on 5,600 square meters of exhibition ground opens on 12 March 2016. (Photo by Ens Buettner/EPA)

A commuter gestures to Boris Johnson as he rides across Vauxhall Bridge in London, England on November 19, 2015. The London mayor was opening a cycle superhighway. (Photo by John Stillwell/PA Wire)

A worker, dressed in a protective suit, cleans Conchitas Beach contaminated by an oil spill, in Ancon, Peru, Thursday, January 20, 2022. The oil spill on the Peruvian coast was caused by the waves from an eruption of an undersea volcano in the South Pacific nation of Tonga. (Photo by Martin Mejia/AP Photo)