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 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)

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)

A fantasy figure promotes a video game at the Gamescom computer gaming fair in Cologne, Germany, Thursday, August 25, 2022. Around 1,100 exhibitors from 53 countries expect tens of thousands gaming enthusiast daily for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic at the world's largest gaming event. (Photo by Martin Meissner/AP Photo)

A student of the department for aritificial intelligence at the Freie Universitaet Berlin steers a converted Dodge minivan remotely with an iPhone during a demonstration at Tempelhof Airport on November 2, 2009 in Berlin, Germany. The car, whose design was led by professor Raul Rojas, is outfitted with a variety of laser sensors, GPS antennae and computers. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Dr. Hannah Cobb from The University of Manchester looks at a viking sword during a viewing at CFA Archaeology of artefacts discovered from the first fully intact Viking boat burial site on October 18, 2011 in Edinburgh, Scotland. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

A Japanese girl poses in a costume at a Chara Fes (character festival) event on October 26, 2003 in Tokyo. Cosplay (costume play) is becoming popular among Japanese youths, whereby participants dress up as their favourite characters from comics, computer games and animation. (Photo by Junko Kimura/Getty Images)

Conjoined twins Angelica (C) and Angelina Sabuco (L) play with child life specialist Allison Brooks during a press conference at the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford on October 31, 2011 in Palo Alto, California. Two year-old conjoined twins Angelica and Angelina Subaco who are connected at the chest and abdomen are preparing for separation surgery by Dr. Gary Hartman. The surgery will last between 6 and 8 hours that is followed by three hours of reconstructive surgery for each girl. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)