A traditional optical microscope can magnify objects by more than a thousand times, but scientists are often interested in even smaller things. Electron microscopy can make an object appear one million times larger. But the smallest objects are usually also quite fast, which is why the speed of the microscope is also essential. Scientists from the University of Arizona have reached a new milestone for microscopic speed, creating a faster scanning electron microscope that can capture an image in just one attosecond-a quintillionth of a second.