(L-R) Actors Simon Pegg, Paula Patton and Tom Cruise attend the “Mission:Impossible – Ghost Protocol” Germany Premiere at BMW Welt on December 9, 2011 in Munich, Germany. (Photo by Andreas Rentz/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures)

Afghan security stands guard as a tractor eradicates a field of young poppy plants May 25, 2011, in Argu District, Badakshan, Afghanistan. (Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)

A mahout (elephant driver) walks a baby elephant across the city streets at night September 27, 2008 in Bangkok, Thailand. (Photo Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)

A zebra walks through the recently flooded Safari Park located at Safari World November 2, 2011 in Bangkok, Thailand. (Photo by Paula Bronstein /Getty Images)

Mongolian herder, Khurelsukh, throws the carcass of a goat onto a heap as he struggles to deal with losing a quarter of his herd, on March 8, 2010 in Bayantsogt, Tuv province, Mongolia. (Photo by Paula Bronstein /Getty Images)

In this Wednesday, December 2, 2015 photo, Dr. Gal Kelmer, head of the department of large animals, unties a horse after its operation at the University's Koret School of Veterinary Medicine in Rishon Lezion, Israel. “Horses have an instinctive response of flight from danger”, Kelmer said. “The minute they wake up they start trying to stand and run, even if they don't have control of their limbs. So then they fall”. (Photo by Oded Balilty/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)

Dr. Marius Kruger (C) and memeber of the Kruger National Park keeps the head of a rhino up during a white rhino relocation capture on October 17, 2014. The Kruger National Park relocated four rhinoceros from a high risk poaching area to a safer area as part of ongoing strategic rhinoceros management plan. (Photo by Stefan Heunis/AFP Photo)