An Israeli soldier waits at the bus station, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Tel Aviv, Israel on August 15, 2024. (Photo by Florion Goga/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)

In this Wednesday, July 20, 2016 photo, a child carries kettles through a flooded street with a woman in Tianjin, China. China says dozens of people have died or gone missing since Monday in massive floods across the country's north. (Photo by Chinatopix via AP Photo)

In a handout picture released by the Brit Awards English singer-songwriter Dua Lipa poses with her awards for Female Solo Artist and British Album at the BRIT Awards 2021 in London on May 11, 2021. (Photo by John Marshall/Handout via Reuters)

People wearing face masks pose for a photo holding the flag of the Communist Party of China the Museum of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in Beijing, China, 14 October 2022. The CPC museum is a site devoted to permanent and comprehensive exhibitions of the party's history. (Photo by Wu Hao/EPA/EFE)

The first four finalists are selected during the 66th Miss Universe pageant at Planet Hollywood hotel-casino in Las Vegas, Nevada on November 26, 2017. (Photo by Steve Marcus/Reuters)

Early morning storms over the Masai Mara National Reserve, Kenya on August 26, 2016. (Photo by Action Press/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

A sharia executor, know as algojo, during a public caning punishment in Jantho, Aceh Besar Regency, Indonesia, 17 November 2017. Ten people were sentenced to public caning for adultery in Aceh, the only province in Indonesia which implements sharia law. (Photo by Hotli Simanjuntak/EPA/EFE)