The smallest distance resolvable by normal visible-light microscopes is around 200nm, so H1N1 is effectively invisible. It can be just about detected with UV light microscopes, but to see any structure requires electron or atomic force microscopes. Even then, we can only just make out the surface features, as they are the size of individual molecules.
Comparing H1N1 to things you can see:-
- A strand of spider silk is around 5 microns in diameter, so 42 viruses would fit across it.
- A red blood cell is is around 7 microns in diameter, so 60 viruses would fit across it.
- A human hair averages 80 microns in diameter, so 666 viruses would fit across it. (hair varies from 18 to 180 microns so it's not a very good thing to compare to, despite the media using it all the time)
- The pits on a CD are about 125nm deep and 500nm wide, so a row of five viruses could nestle into one.
For those of you familiar with 30 St Mary Axe in London, also known as the Swiss Re Building or The Gherkin, we have a really nice comparison:
If a grain of uncooked rice was scaled up to the size of the Swiss Re Building (30,000 times), an H1N1 virus would be the size of a grain of rice.
At the same scale, a human hair would be about 8 feet wide and a red blood cell would be the size of a grapefruit.
If you're in need of a 3D computer model of H1N1, we have one available via TurboSquid.
