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)

Irish television personality and presenter Maura Higgins showed off her platinum hairdo on April 18, 2022 at the annual music and arts festival Coachella festival held at the Empire Polo Club in California. (Photo by Instagram)

Palestinian girls struggle as they get donated food at a distribution center in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, on Friday, December 6, 2024. (Photo by Abdel Kareem Hana/AP Photo)

American media personality and socialite Kim Kardashian shared photos from her lavish trip to Turks and Caicos in the second decade of January 2024. Kim posed for selfies in the revealing look. (Photo by Kim Kardashian/Instagram)

Models walk the runway during Pets Carnival on day 1 of the Jember Fashion Carnival 2025 on August 08, 2025 in Jember, Indonesia. (Photo by Robertus Pudyanto/Getty Images)

Seals on Wednesday, November 12, 2025 on the Farne Islands during the annual census of pup numbers at one of England's largest grey seal colonies. The islands, off the Northumberland coast, is an important haven for thousands of seabirds and hundreds of adult seals, and are looked after by the National Trust. (Photo by Owen Humphreys/PA Wire)

Two visitors look at an artwork “Home Sweet Home: Pandemic Love 1” created by Hong Kong artist Mak Ying Tung at Art Basel in Hong Kong Wednesday, May 19, 2021. Art Basel, one of the world's most prestigious modern and contemporary art exhibitions, is returning to Hong Kong in its ninth edition. The prestige art fair is hosting 104 galleries from 23 countries and territories. (Photo by Vincent Yu/AP Photo)

A pine marten – one of a few wild mammals doing well in Britain (although they number just 3,700). A fifth of the country’s wild mammals are at high risk of extinction, research shows. (Photo by Maurice Flynn/The Mammal Society)