As reported on LiveScience.com, researchers have for the first time “filmed” an electron in motion around a nucleus. Previously, indirect visualization methods were used that could only measure the effect of an electron’s movement, whereas the new technique can capture the entire event. Extremely short flashes of light are necessary to capture an electron in motion. A technology developed within the last few years can generate short pulses of intense laser light, called attosecond pulses, that can be used to visualize the electron motion. An attosecond is 10^-18 seconds, which can be put into perspective this way: one attosecond is related to a second as a second is related to the age of the universe, according to Johan Mauritsson of Lund University in Sweden. “It takes about 150 attoseconds for an electron to circle the nucleus of an atom,” he said. Using another laser, scientists can guide the motion of the electron to capture a collision between an electron and an atom on film. The length of the film Mauritsson and his colleagues made corresponds to a single oscillation of a wave of light. The results are detailed in the latest issue of the journal Physical Review Letters. A movie of the event is also on the LiveScience website.