Microworld Unseen: Chapter 01 Pale Grass Blue

For more high-res photos: Everyday objects and life forms, magnified hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands times, what would you see? That’s what we want to show in Microworld Unseen, a new project from Beauty of Science, in which we use a scanning electron microscope (SEM) to explore the microscopic world and discover extraordinary and beautiful sceneries within ordinary objects and life forms. In the first chapter of Microworld Unseen, our main character is the pale grass blue (Pseudozizeeria maha) which is a common butterfly found in Asia. It is small and has a quite ordinary look. As a result, you probably have seen them flying around near wild flowers before, but very likely, you have paid little attention to them. Their ordinary look is the reason why we decided to take another good look at them with a SEM. One hidden feature revealed: the body of this little creature was covered with different kinds of scales everywhere you look. Credits Photographer: Jiaqian LI Tech Director: Guangyu YANG Video Editor: Xiang ZHANG Art Director: Wenting ZHU Text & Producer: Yan LIANG