Photographer captures beautiful microscopic images of his friend's tears to show how each is unique

However, in fact these are tears.

A Dutch artists created the amazing images in a bid to see if different triggers - such as eating a chilli or chopping onions, created different looking tears, reports the Daily Mail.

“I decided to start an evening of experimenting with my close friends,' wrote Maurice Mikkers, a photographer from the Netherlands.

“I asked them to cut onions, eat hot peppers, look in to a fan or cry because of sadness or happiness. To see if there was a resemblance or difference in the structure of forming tears, I took images of every tear drop under the microscope.

Scientifically tears are divided into three different types based on their origin.

Tears contain oils, antibodies and enzymes and fall into three categories; basal, which are released continuously to keep the eyes lubricated; reflex, which occur in response to irritants such as when chopping onions or when getting poked in the eye; and psychic, triggered by emotions.

Scientists have identified that different types of tears are made up of distinct molecules.
For example those caused by emotions contain hormones which act as a painkiller and are released when we are stressed.

Because tears are suspended in salt, they also look very different when then crystalise and are viewed under a microscope.

“We are all familiar with these ways of crying, but how do they look microscopically? Is there any difference? Science says that every tear has a different viscosity and composition,” said Mikkers.

The structures shown in the pictures are largely crystallized salt, the circumstances under which the tear dries can lead to radically dissimilar shapes and formations, so two psychic tears with the exact same chemical makeup can look very different up close.

“I think its safe too say that the differences in tears that are seen are not showing differences
between the origins of crying, but just show a composition of the tear it self and the circumstances it crystallised in.

“Nevertheless they are beautiful to look at,” concluded Mikkers.