A girl waits for a devotee to apply a tilak on her forehead during the annual Jhiri Fair at Kanachack village on the outskirts of Jammu, India, Wednesday, November 5, 2025. (Photo by Channi Anand/AP Photo)

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)

Actresses from left Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Rosie Perez, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Margot Robbie and Ella Jay Basco pose for a selfie photo upon arrival at the world premiere of “Birds of Prey” in London, Wednesday, January 29, 2020. (Photo by Joel C. Ryan/Invision/AP Photo)

English television, radio presenter and DJ Maya Jama was alluring as Medusa at Maya Jama's annual Halloween party on October 30, 2021 in London, England. (Photo by mayajama/Instagram)

Models wait backstage ahead of the Carolina Herrera Fall/Winter 2023 collection show during the New York Fashion Week in New York City, U.S., February 13, 2023. (Photo by Andrew Kelly/Reuters)

Listed as endangered on the IUCN red list of threatened species, a humphead wrasse, or Napoleon fish, swims in an aquarium during an event in Tokyo's shopping district of Ginza on August 5, 2019. (Photo by Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP Photo)

An abandoned tank left by Boko Haram, February 20, 2016, seen on the road to Michika, Nigeria – a town formerly occupied by the insurgents. On April 14, 2014, 300 schoolgirls in the Chibok village in Nigeria were kidnapped by the terrorist group, Boko Haram. Two years later, the majority of these girls are still missing. According to the Global Terrorism Index Report 2015, Boko Haram, which operates mainly in Nigeria, has become the most deadly terrorist group in the world. (Photo by Danielle Villasana)

A man arrested for protesting over human rights abuses makes a court appearance in leg irons at the magistrates courts in Harare, Monday, September 14, 2020. Human rights defenders say it appears the government is using restrictions imposed to combat COVID-19 to suppress political criticism. Opposition officials, human rights groups and some analysts accuse Mnangagwa of abusing the rights of critics, using tactics as harsh as his predecessor, the late Robert Mugabe. (Photo by Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/AP Photo)