The Beauty of Science’s “Microworld Unseen” project reveals the hidden beauty and weirdness of everyday objects through the “eye” of a scanning electron microscopes (SEMs). Capable of imaging at 1 nanometer resolution (one billionth of a meter) or less, SEMs scan the sample surface with a focused electron beam to generate topographic data that’s used to produce the image. The first specimen in the Microworld Unseen series is a butterfly called the pale grass blue (Pseudozizeeria maha). Below is the butterfly’s genitalia followed by an image of its compound eyes and proboscis.
