The images of the current outbreak of the new coronavirus have so far been very human: air travelers wearing masks, tourists stranded on cruise ships, medical workers wearing protective suits.
But new images of the virus show us what it looks like up close.
These images were made using scanning and transmission electron microscopes at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Mont. NIAID is part of the National Institutes of Health
Emmie de Wit, chief of NIAID’s Molecular Pathogenesis Unit, provided the virus samples. Microscopist Elizabeth Fischer produced the images, and the lab’s visual medical arts office digitally colorized the images.