Jaw Droppingly Beautiful Small World Photography

Every year, entries in the Nikon Small World competition are stunningly beautiful. The competition receives thousands of submissions of extremely close-up photography from scientists and photomicrographers around the world. These pictures are captured with the help of microscopes, and allow us to see things in amazing detail that we wouldn’t normally be able to. The photographs are truly works of art, making things that might make us shudder, like the ant’s head below, appear completely breathtaking.

The winners of the competition will be determined by a panel of judges, but the public can help choose the winner of the popular vote. The judges will make their selections on October 4th and people can check out the gallery of more than 100 finalists and choose the popular vote until October 31st. Check out a few of our favorite entries in the competition below.

Frontal View of an Ant by Jan Michels from the Christian Albrechts Universitata zu Kiel:

Feather by Harry Leun of the Immune Disease Institute at Harvard Medical School:

Silver Wattle Tree Anther by Marta Guervos of the University of Oviedo, Spain:

Velvet Mite by David Maitland from Feltwell, UK:

Rat Kangaroo Kidney Cell by Lynne Chang of the Harvard Medical School:

Cow Cells by Torsten Wittmann from the University of California, San Francisco:

Bladderwort by Jose R. Almodovar from the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez Campus:

Filaria Worms by Witold Kilarski of EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland:

(via Wired)