X-Rays can pass through people’s bodies. They help doctors see inside us to find broken bones or cavities in our teeth. They can help us “see” what molecules insides cells look like even though these molecules are too small for us to see with our eyes. X-rays can even make molecules explode!

Margaret Murnane and Henry Kapteyn are scientists at JILA who are married to each other. They like to do experiments together to understand molecules like nitrogen work. Nitrogen molecules make up most (78%) of the air we breathe. Even though people don’t need them to live, these molecules are very important in our atmosphere.

Margaret and Henry and their students did a really fun experiment last spring. They blasted nitrogen molecules with X-Rays. Then they used laser light to look inside the nitrogen molecules as they fell apart into nitrogen atoms. They saw something very surprising, though: The X-Rays made some of the nitrogen molecules explode like crazy.

Because molecules are too small for people to see, an artist drew a picture of exploding molecules to show what happened in Margaret and Henry’s experiment. The blue light beams are the X-Rays. One beam is making a (green) nitrogen molecule fall apart. Another is blowing a different nitrogen molecule to smithereens. A red laser strobe light is freeze-framing the explosion. This lets Margaret and Henry watch every step of the blast as it unfolds. —Julie Phillips

Back