A woman uses her smartphone walking past a mural depicting members of Russia's Yunarmiya (Young Army) youth patriotic movement in Moscow on May 14, 2024. (Photo by Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP Photo)

A woman throws fallen leaves and jumps while posing for a photo at the Bauman garden in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, October 14, 2025. (Photo by Pavel Bednyakov/AP Photo)

TV personality Meredith Marks at Caesars Forum in Las Vegas, NV on Friday, November 14, 2025. (Photo by: Griffin Nagel/Bravo via Getty Images)

Members of the Colombian Military forces pray for members of the military that have lost their lives and peace in the country at the Military Engineers School in Bogota, Colombia on October 14, 2021. (Photo by Juancho Torres/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Nail salon Maniqure owner Lim Pei Xin works on a Squid Game's manicure for a client at her shop in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on October 14, 2021. (Photo by Lim Huey Teng/Reuters)

American rapper Saweetie performs at the European MTV Awards in Budapest, Hungary, Sunday, November 14, 2021. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP Photo)

Pittsburgh Steelers outside linebacker T.J. Watt (90) is introduced before an NFL football game against the Detroit Lions in Pittsburgh, Sunday, November 14, 2021. (Photo by Don Wright/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)