A smiling gecko bursts through a gap in the bark to surprise photographer in West Java, Indonesia in the last decade of March 2025. (Photo by Dzul Duzulfikri/Animal News Agency)

A skater observes pancakes snow on the frozen Lake des Rousses in Les Rousses, central-eastern France, on January 1, 2025. This phenomenon forms when slushy ice in water clumps into round, pancake-like shapes due to waves or currents. (Photo by Fabrice Coffrini/AFP Photo)

Artwork by Ruth Bellotti & Steve Rosewell called “Soldier Scale 1:1” is seen at the 2008 Sculpture by the Sea launch at Mark's Park, Bondi on October 15, 2008 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Gaye Gerard/Getty Images)

Monks dressed as Tibetan Buddhism characters attend a religious ceremony, known as “Da Gui” or beating ghost, to celebrate the upcoming Tibetan New Year which starts on March 1 at Yonghegong Lama Temple, in Beijing February 28, 2014. This Tibetan ceremony is held annually at the end of the first lunar month with mask dancing to expel ghosts, according to a press release. (Photo by Jason Lee/Reuters)

Revellers participate in the annual gay pride parade in Amsterdam, Netherlands on August 4, 2018. (Photo by Piroschka van de Wouw/Reuters)

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)

The waning moon sets behind leafless sumac trees on a crisp, clear morning, Thursday, December 15, 2016, in Portland, Maine. Much of the northern Mid-Atlantic and Northeast will stay cold for the next couple of days as the arctic air remains stuck over the northern Appalachians, the National Weather Service said. (Photo by Robert F. Bukaty/AP Photo)

Cars drive under a rainbow near Bad Langensalza, Germany, Wednesday, November 2, 2016. (Photo by Jens Meyer/AP Photo)