A woman arranges peppers for drying in the sun as seasonal workers process tomatoes after a harvest in Gaziantep, Turkey on August 10, 2021. Drying of peppers, zucchinis, eggplants and gherkins began. (Photo by Mehmet Akif Parlak/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

In this photo provided by Sugar Bowl Resort, snow covers the door of the marketing office at the Sugar Bowl Resort in Norden, Calif., on Monday, March 4, 2024. A powerful blizzard dumped more than 10 feet of snow on the California ski resort, where the marketing team had to dig a tunnel to get to their office door. The storm closed highways and most lifts at ski resorts over the weekend. (Photo by Jacob Banta/Sugar Bowl Resort via 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)

In this September 11, 2014 photo, villagers climb down the side of a hill used earlier as a dumping ground of asbestos waste on Roro hills in Roro, India. An asbestos mine, abandoned nearly three decades ago still affects the people around it and 18 along with Jema were diagnosed with asbestosis in 2012. Tens of thousands more, some former mine workers, remain untested and at risk. (Photo by Saurabh Das/AP Photo)

Polar frame, by Dmitry Kokh, Russia. When Kokh’s boat approached the small island of Kolyuchin in the Russian High Arctic, which had been abandoned by humans since 1992, he was surprised to spot movement in one of the houses. Binoculars revealed polar bears – more than 20 in total – exploring the ghost town. Dmitry used a low-noise drone to document them. (Photo by Dmitry Kokh/Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2022)

Alvine Uva, right, wrestles the winner's sash from the hands of newly-crowned Miss BumBum 2018 Ellen Santana, left after winning the Miss Bumbum Brazil 2018 pageant in Sao Paulo, Brazil on November 5, 2016. (Photo by Splash News and Pictures)

Performers on boats take part in the Qintong Boat Festival at Qin Lake National Wetland Park on April 6, 2019 in Taizhou, Jiangsu Province of China. The boat festival is held around the Qingming Festival every year, and up to 10,000 participants from nearby villages and towns, with more than 500 boats, took part in the event this year. (Photo by Tang Dehong/VCG via Getty Images)

A woman sells chips in Abidjan, Ivory Coast on August 09, 2019. World's number one cacao producer Ivory Coast's capital Abidjan set peace after the 201011 Ivorian crisis. Women in Abidjan work in various jobs to help their families' budget. (Photo by Mahmut Serdar Alakus/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)