View All Physics in Pictures
Tiny Drops Create Rings of Color
A rainbow isn't the only amazing thing that can happen when light bounces around inside water droplets!
Neural Nets Help Design Stable Quantum Computers
Using cutting-edge machine-learning technology, scientists are pushing the envelope of quantum computing.
What Color is this Bird?
The swallow tanager gets its brilliant blue and turquoise hues by harnessing the wavelike properties of light.
Don't Eat This! A Recipe for "Nuclear Pasta"
The interior of a neutron star plays host to strange phases of matter unlike anything seen here on Earth.
An Astronomically Powerful Debut: Herbig-Haro Objects
The birth of a star produces spectacularly fast-moving bursts of particles.
Meet the Z-Machine
The incredible energy of the Z Pulsed Power Facility makes for an impressive sight.
Polyhedral Peg, Round Hole
Finding the best way to pack objects into a container of a certain shape is harder than you might think.
Bouncing a Stream: The Kaye Effect
The non-Newtonian properties of liquid soap and shampoo fluid let them "bounce" as a stream. Try it at home!
Nanostructures Promise Iceproof Surfaces
A unique blend of nanoscale structures might let us create frost-proof surfaces
Bursting a Different Kind of Bubble
The interplay of surface tension and evaporation leads to some spectacular fluid dynamics!
Bubble Tracks: A Window on the Subatomic
How do we photograph something too small to be seen with the naked eye?
Color Charge: BZ Patterns
Belousov-Zhabotinsky (or BZ) patterns arise when molecules repeatedly gain and lose electrons in waves.
Black Hole Sun: Quasi-Stars
Stars are powered by nuclear fusion, but the early universe may have played host to quasi-stars, astronomical behemoths with black holes at the center.
Nuclear Mysteries: the Rope Trick Effect
Developing and testing the most destructive weapons in history was a process fraught with danger—and discovery.
Color Charge: Plastics, Polymers, and Voronoi Diagrams
Learn about plastics and polymers with the newest page from our upcoming all-ages coloring book!
Color Charge: Hearing and Hair Bundles
We're thrilled to release the first page from our new all-ages coloring book project, Color Charge!
Making Art from Materials Science
Check out the winners of the Materials Research Society's 2016 "Science as Art" competition!
Dispersion Reveals Coffee at the End of the Rainbow
Dispersion through a glass splits light into its component colors.
Diamonds are for Etching
Electron beam-induced etching (EBIE) conquers nature's hardest surface with ease.
Coronal Loops
Plasma arcs from the surface of the sun, guided back down by powerful magnetic field lines.
Ice Slips Through Water
A layer of meltwater keeps ice moving through fluid with minimal turbulence.
The "Sunset Egg": Tyndall Scattering
The Tyndall Effect is responsible for the strange optical properties of this physics toy.
Diffraction Through a Spiderweb
Dew on a spiderweb's strands splits sunlight into a prismatic rainbow of colors.
Mysteries of the Glass Transition
Why do certain liquids transition into glass? There's no easy answer.
Jupiter's Little Red Spot
On its way to Pluto, New Horizons caught a glimpse of Jupiter's smaller blemish
Perihelion and Eccentricity
Learn about the Earth's farthest point from the sun with a lesson in eccentricity
Watery Blue Sunset
An artistically adapted image from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory reveals the sun in a new light
Symmetry Wake
This image reveals the intricate wake structure left behind two cylinders rotating in a fluid.
Spooky Nebula
The National Optical Astronomy Observatory snapped this photo of the haunting SH2 136 Nebula.
Cassini's View of Alpha Centauri
An image of our nearest star system neighbor, Alpha Centauri, taken by the Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn.
Particle Quilt
One artist has captured the beauty of the LHC's particle detectors in a new form: quilts.
Fluid Turbulence
Simulations reveal a striking battle between two forces when lighter fluids flow above heavier ones.
Slime Mold Evolution
A time lapse image of a developing slime mold network. By watching this growth, physicists hope to better understand the analogous development of transportation networks.
Droplet Time Lapse
A time lapse image of a dyed water droplet falling into electrically-charged oil and water.
Virus Microscopy
An atomic force microscopy (AFM) scan reveals several hundred tobacco mosaic virus particles.
Endeavour's Flight Home
The retired Space Shuttle Endeavour stopped in Houston, Texas before heading to Los Angeles for permanent display.
Dream Chaser
The Dream Chaser spacecraft performs a test flight over Boulder, Colorado's flatiron rock formations.
Dark Energy Camera
A 570-megapixel camera attached to a telescope will help scientists uncover the mysteries of dark energy.
Rover Debris
Before landing on Mars' surface, the Curiosity Rover images its parachute's crash site.
Flowing Beads
Mixing different beads delineates coherent structures, providing insight into how grains mix.
Quantum Simulation Bonding
Simulations indicate that hydrogen bond density is higher on the surface of titanium dioxide than on tin dioxide, but the hydrogen bonds are found to be stronger on tin dioxide than titanium dioxide.
Order Through Chaos
When researchers tried packing billiard-ball-like spheres in a number of ways, the most chaotic ones were consistently the most symmetrical.
Optical Resonators
Researchers hope to combine high quality optics and mechanical systems integrated into an extremely compact package.
Fractal Globule
Experimental evidence suggests that the human genome may bundle into these unknotted fractal globules.
Protecting Privacy with Quantum Computing
A schematic of a blind quantum computer that could protect user's privacy.
New Phase of Matter in Superconductor
High temperature superconductor spills secrets: a new phase of matter.
Stream Network Branching
Ever wonder how streams form? Physicists are using models to better understand the branching of streams.
Bouncing Ball
The simple act of bouncing a ball may not conjure up feelings of physics, but there is more physics going on than meets the eye. Tags: Force and Motion
Patterns in the Sand
When a Chladni plate vibrates patterns emerge in the sand. It’s not magic, or the hand of an invisible artist, but the vibrations themselves that cause the lines and patterns to emerge
Liquid Art
These images captured the moment streams of liquid collide, bending the streams and forming beautiful images.
Aerogel: Fighting Fires
This photo illustrates the insulating properties of aerogel. The crayons on top of the aerogel are not melting, protected from the flame by a layer of aerogel.
Rayleigh Scattering Sunsets
What causes the orange hue in a sunset? Why is the sky blue? Rayleigh scattering can explains these natural wonders, leaving onlookers amazed.
Crystal Ball
This ball is cannot tell you your future and it doesn’t drop to signal the beginning of a new year. No, this ball illustrates the physics concept of refraction.
Quantum Reality
A thirty foot model of a buckyball is suspended in the tree tops, taking physics and making art.
Topographic Moon Map
This is the highest resolution topographic map of the moon to date taken from information gathered by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).
The Aurora Borealis
The Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, shines above Bear Lake, Eielson Air Force Base. Find out about the physics behind this phenomenon.
Lighting Up Wall Street
High frequency trading computers can help make investors millions, but where in the world would be the best place for these computers to be located? Physics could help explain how to make your millions.
Striped Superconductors
This psychedelic image is a graphical summary of a theory describing striped superconductors.
Solar Color Conversion
Molecules that convert light from one color to another could improve the efficiency of solar cells, provided researchers can find better ways to handle them.
Tiny Antennas
These antennas could be used in devices that use light in place of the electrical signals.
Molecular Transistor
Physicists have made what they believe to be the first true single molecule transistor.
Crystal Ions in Space
An ion trap allows physicists to capture atoms and hold them in crystal–like configurations in free space.
Moon Tracks
This isn’t a new flavor of ice cream. No, this photo taken from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter shows the marks left behind by Apollo 17.
AB Effect
In 1959 the Aharonov-Bohm effect took its place as a legitimate demonstration of unexpected physics in the quantum world.
Bundle of Tiny Carbon Nanotubes
Crystal-like carbon nanotubes could serve as wiring for future computers.
Spin Ice Monopoles
Spin ice is like magnetic ice and physicists have made analogies of magnetic monopoles in spin ice.
Hollow Atoms
Physicists have removed the inner electrons from neon with a high energy X-ray laser, leaving behind a hollow atom shell.
Graphene Quilt
This quilt won't just keep you warm; it can teach you about the four electronic states central to understanding the properties of graphene.
Human Genome Folded
Inside cells there is a long code that holds all of an organism’s hereditary information, but how does that long code fit in that tiny space?
Physics of Goo
Next time you put syrup on your pancakes remember that there is physics behind how the syrup flows.
Stalactite Meets Stalagmite
What might look like the top and bottom of a limestone cave, may actually revolutionize the world of tiny electronics.
Entangling Qubits
This small grey crystal of silicon inside a glass test tube contains 10 billion pairs of entangled spin qubits
Sea Urchin Teeth
This scanning electron microscope image shows the recently discovered calcite mineral bridges that connect the developing tooth plates in the sea urchin Eucidaris tribuloides, fascinating physicists with their strength.
Mussel Mucus
Mussels generate their own self healing sticky material and now scientists are able to make a synthetic version in the lab.
Four Qubits, One Chip
This computer chip includes four superconducting qubits that make up a version of a computer microprocessor.
The First Superconducting Magnet
The world’s first superconducting magnet, consisting of a wire coil made of lead, was manufactured in the Leiden Physics Laboratory in 1912.
Less is More for E. Coli
New simulations show that reducing the number of spare DNA genes in the microbe E. coli can actually increase the bacteria’s chances of survival.
Spin Kaleidoscope
This image shows a map of the electrical characteristics of a topological insulator, providing information that is helping physicists to better understand how these new materials work.
Atomic Transistors
If you could look deep inside an infrared LED and had microscopic vision, you might see the image above, showing the microscopic image of the surface of gallium arsenide (GaAs) and how the arrangement of atoms on the GaAs surface affect its electric field.
MESSENGER Measures Up
The Sun’s closest neighbor, Mercury, now has a spacecraft zooming around its orbit. NASA’s Messenger spacecraft successfully achieved orbit around Mercury on Thursday , March 17th, 2011 around 9 p.m. EDT. This is the first spacecraft to begin orbiting Mercury, a milestone for US space exploration.
Nano Sized Light Switch
Imagine having a switch the size of a molecule. It could control a tiny electric circuit built from single atoms and molecules.
Cloud Waves
When people think of waves they often look to the oceans, but waves can also be found high in the sky. In this picture Amsterdam Island in the Indian Ocean made waves in the clouds.
Berliner Helicopter
What looks like a unique airplane was actually the first helicopter to make a controlled flight.
Rocky Planet: Kepler 10b
The Kepler Spacecraft, after nearly 8 months of collecting data (May 2009 – January 2010), discovered an exoplanet, Kepler 10b, that orbits a star other than our sun.
It’s Raining Antimatter… Upward?
The electrons produce so many gamma rays that they shoot electrons and positrons out of the atmosphere and NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope intercepts these particles, showing evidence that thunderstorms may be producing antimatter.
Light Magic
While running a series of Monochromatic UV germicidal range finding experiments, Barry Ressler created a series of images that Pink Floyd would be proud of.
Happy Groundhog's Day
Will the groundhog see his shadow and promise 6 more weeks of winter? More importantly, what is a shadow and where in this folklore is the science?
Snowflake Science
The sky is falling! No, those are just snowflakes falling from the clouds. In this Physics in Pictures explore what conditions make snowflakes and what all snowflakes have in common.
Happy New Year! Laserfest Takes Over Times Square
When the ball dropped on New Year’s Eve, 2010, it stood for more than the closing of a decade. It marked the end of Laserfest(www.laserfest.org), celebrating the 50th anniversary of the invention of the laser. In this picture, Laserfest says thank you and goodbye in Times Square
Smoke Rings in Water
A smoke-ring flow pattern - or vortex ring--can develop, pinch-off, and be regenerated, all without forces, when the flow is driven by chemical reactions.
LED Hula Hoopers and Fire Hoopers Show Physics in a Whole New Light
What does dancing have to do with physics? One photographer uses his understanding of light and technology to capture fire dancing and hula hooping, which inadvertently reveal different forces in physics and the nature of light.
Shoot the Moon!
Lasers are used to track satellites. At the Goddard Space Flight Center lasers are used to track the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), which is collecting data as it orbits the Moon.
The 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics is…
In 2004, Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov were looking for a metallic substance that could be used as a semiconductor. With the use of adhesive tape, their method of making graphene led to receiving the 2010 Nobel prize.
USA Science and Engineering Festival
James Roche explains how LiDar and the squealing wall work at the Laser Haunted House at the 2010 USA Science and Engineering Festival.
Sputnik and Satellites
Sputnik I was the world's first artificial satellite. It marked a new era in political, military, technological and scientific developments, beginning the space age and the U.S.-U.S.S.R space race. Satellites use gravity to stay in orbit. Learn about the differences between Newton's and Einstein's explanations of gravity as it relates to satellites.
It’s Raining Gamma Rays
If you happen to step outside into a thunderstorm, I bet the last thing you are concerned about is getting hit by gamma rays. A team of scientists has been using satellite data to find out where gamma ray pulses are coming from with a great deal of accuracy in order to clarify if these pulses are related to lightening.
Gamma Ray All-Sky Map
The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is our high energy eye in orbit keeping a look out for big events in the universe and creating an extensive detailed map in the process. A high energy map of our universe reveals many interesting objects such as pulsars, super-massive black holes and possibly clues to its beginning.
Perfect Spheres to Test Einstein
Einstein is looking at you through a near perfect glass sphere. In fact this is the most precise sphere that humans have ever created. The surface of this little marble is so smooth that any bumps or scratches are no higher than 40 atoms. Cool! But why?
Free Floating Plasma Orb or Squid Ghost
Ghost of discharged capacitor found haunting a glass of water! What could be more scary than that? Try a hot ball of electric plasma.
Laser-Plasma Creates Electro-Optic Shocks
High power laser pulses create shock-waves and bubbles in plasma.
Dust devils on Mars!
What does this image look like to you? Could it be a close up of a tattoo or a lizard's back or even silly putty that was rubbed on a newspaper?
Red Dye Crowned in Milk
This crown is formed by the splash and droplets of a 2 mm drop of red dye impacting on a thin layer of milk.
Centrifugal Instability of an Oscillating Boundary Layer
A cylinder twisting back and forth in water, produces a "centrifugal instability," as shown by fluorescent dye. This fluid pattern will not only help scientists better understand ocean dynamics, but it is also aesthetically beautiful.
Magnetic Properties of Thin Films
This spectroscopic image shows what are called microwave-frequency magnetic resonances of an array of parallel, metallic thin film nanowire "stripes". The peak in the center reflects resonances occurring at the stripe edges. The strong horizontal bar of violet, black, and white, is due to resonances in the body of the stripes.
LaserFest Photons
Photons are the particles that make up light. Who knew that they were also soft and cuddly? Welcome to LaserFest 2010!
Micro-origami
When you dry your hands after washing them they don’t typically warp and wrinkle. That’s not the same with paper.
Exploding White Dwarf Star
Astrophysicists are able to "explode a star" in a virtual computational laboratory by applying physics to calculate the mechanism and progression of the explosion.
MHDPD-Magneto Hydro Dynamic Propulsion Device: The Experiment/ The Attenuation
Red and green dye reveals the turbulent fluid flows from the magneto hydro dynamic propulsion device.
Relativity Train
This train has endured space and time to teach physics to those wandering through the Bolivian desert.
Cornstarch Dimples
A vibrating cornstarch solution appears to come alive and grow fingers. A dimple in the fluid created by a burst of air expands into a deep hole.
My Cup Runneth Down
It might seem intuitively obvious that a layer of dense liquid resting on a less dense liquid is an unstable situation. What isn't as obvious is the complex way that liquids arranged in this manner and tend to move.
Cracking Up
If you dropped a wineglass, you'd expect it to shatter, not skitter across the floor like a silver goblet.
Supernovae Surprise
There's no avoiding the tragic end of a large star's life; it dies in a catastrophic explosion called a supernova.
Steady Drip of Progress
It flows in rivulets, puddles in depressions, falls from the sky; you can even buy it at Costco--three-dimensional, "bulk" water is everywhere.
Speed Trap
Like traffic cops with radar guns, physicists can now gauge the speed of electrons in a current.
A 'Soapy' Solution
Researchers have been frustrated in their attempts to confirm the long-standing theory that describes how dyes mix in turbulent liquids.
Turbulence
The erratic, swirling fluid motion known as turbulence increases wind resistance, and airplane manufacturers go to great lengths to eliminate rough surfaces that promote it.
Smashing Ions
Brookhaven National Laboratory's new Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) smashes two high-energy beams of gold nuclei together head-on, in an attempt to create a state of matter, called quark-gluon plasma, that last existed only ten millionths of a second after the Big Bang.
Simply Shocking
Sparks branch for the same reason that coral reefs and snowflakes do, according to new computer simulations.
Crystal Clear
When an all-electron Wigner crystal (top) is squeezed too tightly, the electron wave functions begin to overlap (middle), and then create a quantum liquid (bottom).
The Sharpest Focus
A team of researchers has announced a new technique that allows light to be focused to a smaller spot than ever before.
Red Rover, Red Rover
With dwindling hope, scientists at the European Space Agency have awaited a nine-note musical message, much like the sound I hear on my daughter's cellphone when it receives a call.
Random Acts of Light
Somewhere between a light bulb and a laser is an unusual and sometimes puzzling type of light source called a random laser.
Radioactive Hotdog?
A spark flying between a metal doorknob and your hand is an intricate chain of electrical events.
Thanks for the Memories
On September 21, 2003 the spacecraft Galileo ended a 14-year mission exploring Jupiter and its four largest moons.
Tiny Tubes
Entangled pairs of particles, in which measuring the state of one simultaneously determines the state of the other, are a central part of proposed schemes for quantum cryptography and teleportation.
Tracking Traveling Excitons
Researchers have tracked their first exciton. A team of researchers recently reported that they imaged the wave-like motion of the particle, which is essential to the operation of lasers in CD players and grocery scanners.
Structures of the Early Universe
Enormous structures in the early universe which are invisible to the unaided eye become apparent when observed using a telescope sensitive to mm-wave light.
Polymers to Polyhedrons
Nanoparticles covered in stringy polymers might someday form the building blocks for drug delivery systems or disease assays.
A New Twist
The frictionless flow of atoms within solid helium may be confined to the axis of a screw dislocation, a spiral defect like the one in this crystal of silicon carbide.
Molecular Motion
The scanning tunneling microscope (STM) can make impressive images of single atoms and molecules on surfaces; now it has been used to measure a molecule's internal motion.
Mini-BooNE
MiniBooNE (mini booster neutrino experiment), a new experiment at Fermilab, has just begun its search for neutrino oscillations.
Mesoscopic Mystery
Researchers continue to push rival interpretations of a vexing problem in mesoscopic physics, the size scale where quantum and classical worlds co-exist.
The Little Chill
Some lasers can burn through solids, but others, shined on the right materials, have a chilling effect.
The World's Largest Cyclotron
If you are asked how a watch works, one of the first things you might do is open one up and look at the parts inside.
In Synch
Electrons don't normally know one direction from another, so researchers were perplexed a few years ago when they found a cold plane of electrons suddenly choosing to conduct many times better in one direction than in the perpendicular one.
T-ray Vision
X-rays may be as familiar as your local dentist's office or airport security checkpoint, but it's unlikely that you've ever encountered a powerful T-ray, a beam of terahertz radiation.
Trilobite Molecules
Researchers predicted the existence of a giant two-atom rubidium molecule with an electron cloud resembling a trilobite, the ancient, hard-shelled creature which lived in the Earth's seas over 300 million years ago.
Turning Circles
Quantum communication schemes using light normally rely on the two types of photon polarization to encode information a bit at a time.
Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Tadpole
Against a stunning backdrop of thousands of galaxies, this odd-looking galaxy with the long streamer of stars appears to be racing through space, like a runaway pinwheel firework.
Optical Corral
If you want to keep a horse confined, put it in a corral. Now, it appears the same thing can be done with light.
Underwater Desert
Windblown dunes can engulf houses, roads, and airfields, but researchers have had a hard time studying them under controlled conditions.
Veins of Gold
Researchers dream of building crystals from the ground up to achieve tight control of their periodic structure.
The Incredible Shrinking Nucleus
Objects in nucleus may be smaller than they appear. At least, that's what current research suggests.
High-Speed Chase
Relativity theory insists that no matter what speed you choose for your spaceship--snail-like or close to light speed--the laws of physics always look the same.
Galaxies Galore
Astronomers at the Space Telescope Science Institute today unveiled the deepest portrait of the visible universe ever achieved by humankind.
Plasma Jets
From the surface of the sun to the violent cores of quasars, many astrophysical objects shoot plasma in sharply defined streams, guided by magnetic fields.
Photonic Phocus
Astronomers at the Space Telescope Science Institute today unveiled the deepest portrait of the visible universe ever achieved by humankind.
Ingenious Algae
Many of the oceans' algae have evolved natural "sunscreens" as protection from the sun's ultraviolet rays.
The Whole Picture
Biologists dream of a point-and-shoot camera that can reveal details smaller than a wavelength of light in living cells.
Wholly Ozone
According to recent research, cosmic rays may be enlarging the hole in the ozone layer.
Good Vibrations
Born of the marriage of two cutting edge techniques, a new method can image bundles of DNA strands by sensing vibrations within the molecules.
Dripping Faucets
When the faucet drips, most people call the plumber or get out their tools, but some physicists are content to study the phenomenon instead.
Crystal Cannibals
The crystallization process that turns a liquid to a solid is brutally competitive, according to an analysis of experiments performed on the Space Shuttle.
Cold Molecules
Physicists have cooled single atoms and molecules with two or three atoms to just a few thousandths of a degree above absolute zero, but it has proved hard to push larger molecules below about 10 degrees Kelvin.
Cold Atoms
This year's physics Nobel Prize went to three researchers who were the first to observe and study the Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), a new phase of matter.
The Circle Game
Like a planet orbiting the sun, some ideas keep coming around. In the 1920s, the inventors of quantum mechanics scuttled the notion that an atom behaves like a tiny solar system.
Crystal Clean
The chemical reactions that keep sulfur and other pollutants from leaving automobile tailpipes rely on catalysts in the form of microscopic particles dispersed within the large surface area of a porous material.
Corona... Gasp!
In late October 2002, the time that some parts of the world were observing autumn’s explosion of color, the Sun gave a colorful show of its own to solar physicists.
'Hole' Fiber Fights Cancer
A holey fiber may be able to plug the "holes" in the list of laser colors is affordable to most scientists.
Catching Neutrinos
The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) in Ontario, Canada has been designed to "catch" neutrinos from the sun.
Catch a Quasiperiodic Wave
Quasicrystals are unusual metallic alloys whose atoms are arranged in orderly patterns that are not quite crystalline.
Blinding Light
Light slows down when it enters a medium such as glass or water, and its new speed depends on the material.
All Mixed Up
If you fill a barrel part-way with red beads, add some green beads, and then roll it around the room a bit, will your beads blend?
Transparent Nuclei
A two-quark particle shot into a large nucleus is ordinarily absorbed, as its quarks interact with the nuclear quarks. But in some cases it can sail right through. Now a research team has reported that they have observed this so-called color transparency in the lower energy realm, where such quark-scale effects aren't normally seen. The results—which are somewhat controversial—could help theorists who hope to bring the clean calculations of high energy, particle physics down into the messy world of lower energy nuclear physics.
Goldilocks Proteins
Milky-white cataracts, the world's leading cause of blindness, can occur when proteins in the lens of the eye aggregate, or collect, forming clumps.
