A close up shows Ukraine's Hanna Ryzhykova leg breaking a hurdle before crashing out as she competes in the women's 400m hurdles heats during the European Athletics Championships at the Letzigrund stadium in Zurich on August 13, 2014. (Photo by Olivier Morin/AFP Photo)

Muslim pilgrims pray around the holy Kaaba at the Grand Mosque, during the annual haj pilgrimage in Mecca September 30, 2014. (Photo by Muhammad Hamed/Reuters)

Pawel Karpinski and Nadine Kinczel of Poland dance as they compete during IPC Wheelchair Dance Sport European Championships in Lomianki near Warsaw, November 9, 2014. (Photo by Kacper Pempel/Reuters)

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)

Steam emerges from a cooling tower of the nuclear power plant Leibstadt near Leibstadt, Switzerland, November 18, 2014. (Photo by Arnd Wiegmann/Reuters)

An Israeli soldier looks through her cell phone as she enjoys the Ranunculus flowers in a field in the southern Israeli Kibbutz of Nir Yitzhak, located along the Israeli- Gaza Strip border, during the Jewish holiday of Pesach (Passover) on April 12, 2017. (Photo by Menahem Kahana/AFP Photo)

A Femen activist is led away by French police in Henin-beaumont, northern France, Sunday, May 7, 2017. Voters across France are choosing a new president in an unusually tense and important election that could decide Europe's future, making a stark choice between pro-business progressive candidate Emmanuel Macron and far-right populist Marine Le Pen. (Photo by Francois Mori/AP Photo)

A relative performs rituals for a man who died of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), before his cremation at a crematorium in New Delhi, India, November 19, 2020. (Photo by Danish Siddiqui/Reuters)