A hummingbird drinks from a flower in a garden on the outfield lawn before a spring training baseball game between the Kansas City Royals and the Athletics, Monday, February 24, 2025, in Surprise, Ariz. (Photo by Lindsey Wasson/AP Photo)

A woman reacts during the annual “Tomatina” tomato fight fiesta, in the village of Bunol near Valencia, Spain, Wednesday, August 27, 2025. (Photo by Alberto Saiz/AP Photo)

“The V-30 Warhawk was designed by Blackshaw Avionics as a long-range fighter and was primarily used by the Arcadian Air Force for escort duties. The plane pictured is the “Spirit of Freedom” and was one of the four planes that escorted the Arcadian Royal Airship during and after the Great War. The three other fighters were the “Spirit of Hope”, the “Spirit of Justice” and the “Spirit of Destiny”. All pilots were hand-picked by the Head of Airborne Forces and included some of the very finest pilots in the Kingdom. The crew consisted of one pilot and one gunner although both cabins were fitted so that if either crew member was killed the other could take over their duties. Each Warhawk was fitted with four Haverlock “Banshee” engines and four 24mm machine guns”. (Photo and comment by Jon Hall)

MotoGP Ducati Lenovo Team rider Marc Marquez (R) of Spain and his girlfriend Gemma Pinto (L) celebrate his World Champion 2025 title after the race at the Motorcycling Grand Prix of Japan in Motegi, Tochigi Prefecture, northeastern Japan, 28 September 2025. (Photo by Franck Robichon/EPA)

A small section of the expanding remains of the Veil Nebula, a massive star that exploded about 8,000 years ago. The entire nebula is 110 light-years across, covering six full moons on the sky as seen from Earth, and resides about 2,100 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus, the Swan. Image taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Released September 24, 2015. (Photo by Reuters/NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage Team)

Folk dancers perform a traditional “Chhou” dance during the celebrations to mark India's 75th Independence Day at the Red Road in Kolkata on August 15, 2022. (Photo by Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP Photo)

Slovenia’s Janja Garnbret climbs during a training session in Verd, some 20 km southwest of Ljubljana, on March 27, 2024. The eight-time world champion is looking to win another gold medal at the Paris 2024 Olympics Games this summer, just like she did in Tokyo 2020 when the sport debuted at the Olympics. (Photo by Jure Makovec/AFP 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)