# @natgeo on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/CoveSM-j_bj
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/4078859-natgeo-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/1381c6ea47.jpg
- **Posted:** 2023-02-16T23:30:13.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** National Geographic (@NatGeo) — https://gondola.cc/NatGeo

## Caption

Photos by Aaron Huey argonautphoto | These are hundred million-year-old microfossils called radiolarians. What I am photographing here are fossilized skeletons of these marine plankton. And I'm doing that with electrons instead of light because they're smaller than a speck of dust. For this project, I've had the incredible fortune to use the world's smallest scanning electron microscope (SEM) to photograph radiolarians in my own backyard for several months now. After 150 hours of scanning, I ended up with some unique images! Each individual image is made from 20 to 60 images shot in a grid stitched together.

These skeletons help scientists study global warming because their chemical signatures can tell us about ocean health back through millions of years. I'd seen images of radiolarians many times, but they were almost always perfect and singular scientific specimens. For this ongoing body of work, I'm focusing on making images that are more poetic than scientific, searching for radiolarians that were locked in an embrace or dance by the chance connection of some parts of their spines, which happened millions of years after their death. Most SEM devices are quite large, but this one is portable and a first of its kind. It's the size of a toaster and was made to travel—even ending up on the International Space Station at one point!
For more of my images and stories about radiolarians, follow argonautphoto #InnovationDay

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## Tags

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