Mothers-to-be show their belly paintings in Hefei, east China's Anhui province on May 8, 2020. (Photo by Rex Features/Shutterstock/China Stringer Network)

A boatman rests on his boat in the flooded Ganges river under the Shastri bridge at Daraganj Ghat, in Allahabad, India on August 22, 2019. (Photo by Sanjay Kanojia/AFP Photo)

A young girl pulls on her braids during the Red Head Days festival in Tilburg, Netherlands, Saturday, August 30, 2025. (Photo by Virginia Mayo/AP Photo)

MTV “Ex On The Beach” star Charlotte Dawson and Big Brother star Sam Giffen (not pictured) having fun on a night out in Manchester, England after leaving neighbourhood restaurant on September 8, 2016. (Photo by XposurePhotos.com)

A fan waves a Brazilian flag before the arrival of the Olympic torch ahead of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games on August 2, 2016 in Sao Goncalo, Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil. The torch will arrive in the city of Rio tomorrow and the Games commence on August 5. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

A petitioner with her grievances written on her clothes walks along a street in Beijing Tuesday, December 22, 2015. After months behind bars, Pu Zhiqiang, one of China's most prominent human rights lawyers, left a detention center Tuesday after receiving a suspended prison sentence in a case involving online comments critical of the ruling Communist Party. (Photo by Ng Han Guan/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)

A woman photographs “Super Space Titan Kitty” by Colin Christian at the “Hello! Exploring the Supercute World of Hello Kitty” museum exhibit in honor of Hello Kitty's 40th anniversary, at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, California October 10, 2014. (Photo by Lucy Nicholson/Reuters)