December Gallery

Image processed photo of part of Turin Shroud

Computer-enhanced negative image of part of the Shroud of Turin. The Shroud has been kept at Turin for centuries, and has been revered as the supposed death- shroud of Jesus Christ by the Christian church. Recent radiocarbon dating has suggested a later origin than one contemporary with Christ - an age of about 500 years has been given. The image itself is also reminiscent of artistic renderings of the figure of Christ dating from the late 15th century. Although this implies that the Shroud is a fake, scientists are unable as yet to explain how the feint burn-like image was produced

© GIANNI TORTOLI/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

21 Dec 2002

© PA Archive/Press Association Images

Density in a Bose-Einstein Condensate

Bose-Einstein Condensate: a new state of matter. Graph of the density of low-velocity rubidium atoms forming a Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC). The blue and white peak shows the BEC, a cloud of a few thousand atoms some 10 microns (millionths of a metre) across. A cloud of rubidium atoms was confined by a laser trap system, then cooled to 180 nK (nanoKelvin, billionths of a degree above absolute zero). At this temperature, atoms move so slowly that the quantum wave function for each one spreads out until all the atoms are in the same quantum state. This first BEC was created at the NIST and University of Colorado on 5 June 1995

© NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY (NIST)/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY