It costs more than most people will earn in a lifetime.

But the $2 million microscope coming to Kansas University will allow researchers to see things most people will never see, thanks to magnifications 500,000 times that of the naked eye.

The transmission electron microscope is like the gift of a fancy car, only much better, said Wendy Picking, assistant research professor in the department of molecular biosciences.

“This is a big, bad Hummer limousine,” she said.

“Any way you look at it, it’s a major piece of equipment,” said George Wilson, KU associate vice provost for research.

Rep. Dennis Moore, D-Kan., on Wednesday announced he’d earmarked $1 million in federal funds toward KU’s purchase of the microscope.

The microscope will give researchers a 3-D view, said David Moore, director of KU’s Microscopy & Analytical Imaging Laboratory, which will oversee the instrument.

It will be used for researching subjects ranging from alternative fuels to viruses and vaccines. It will aid study of the connectivity between human tissue and artificial limbs – work that can benefit military servicemen and women who’ve lost limbs.

“Most people will be very excited about this and very appreciative to Congressman Moore,” said Susan Williams, assistant professor of chemical and petroleum engineering.

KU is looking to other sources, including the National Science Foundation, to fund the rest of the $2 million needed to buy the microscope, along with add-ons that KU faculty want for their research. Wilson said he did not know when the instrument would make its way to campus, but said it could take six months.

The price tag puts the instrument into the ranks of other high-cost scientific instruments at KU, including the $1.9 million 800-MHz spectrometer on KU’s west campus.

KU already has a transmission electron microscope, but it’s nearly two decades old.

“It was state of the art when I was in grade school,” Picking said.

The old machine remains useful to some researchers but is completely useless to others, including Judy Wu, professor of physics and astronomy, who studies nanoscience.

Wu said she recently sent a graduate student to the Air Force Research Laboratory in Ohio to work on a transmission electron microscope because KU didn’t have the technology for the research.

“The resolution will not allow you to get onto nanometer scale,” she said of the university’s older microscope. “It is useless.”

A dozen researchers use the old microscope housed in Haworth Hall. But KU predicts that 20 faculty, 20 undergraduates, 35 graduate students and five post-doctoral students will have access to the new one. That includes researchers from other universities, including Wichita State, Kansas State and Pittsburg State.

Picking said without the instrument, she would have to travel to use another school’s microscope. The new microscope will speed research, bring in grants quicker and ultimately help the entire institution, she said.

“It will really go a long a way in pushing KU into the top 25,” she said.