Take a look at the microscopic world of bone in our virtual bone histology lab. Just pick a microscope slide from below and click on it to view under the virtual microscope. You can zoom in and explore the different parts of the bone. Move around and explore on your own or you can click on the locator buttons to move to a specific part of the bone.

1. Long Bone A cross-section of a long bone	2. Growing Tibia The end of a growing tibia, cut lengthwise
3. Growing Bone Cells in different stages of bone growth	4. Growing Bone Cells in different stages of bone growth
5. Compact Bone Compact bone, densely packed with osteons	6. Spongy Bone & Marrow Spongy bone and marrow tissue
7. Haversian System Multiple osteons of the Haversian System	8. Osteon Close-up of an osteon

From Micrometer to Millimeter

As you look through the virtual microscope at the slides above, you'll notice a scale bar in the upper corner of each image. You can use this bar to measure how big a part of the image is. As you flip through the slides, you'll notice two differents units of measurement, micrometer and millimeter.

1 millimeter (mm) = 1000 micrometer (μm)

To learn more about scale and converting from one unit to another, visit our Matter of Scale article and activity.

To learn more about bones, visit Busy Bones.

Credits

All bone slide images on this page are copyright Professor Jeff Kerr.