Achoo! See the Anatomy of a Sneeze

— -- Just in time for cold and flu season, MIT researchers are showing you exactly what a sneeze looks like in slow motion.

Lydia Bourouiba, of the MIT Fluid Dynamics of Disease Transmission Laboratory, managed to film a real live sneeze at 1,000 frames per second.

Published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the sneeze cloud shows how quickly sneeze droplets can travel.

Bourouiba reported that large droplets tended to land within 1 to 2 meters (about 3 to 6 feet) and that small droplets could get as far as 6 to 8 meters away (19 to 26 feet). She found that the sneeze itself transitions into a "freely evolving turbulent puff cloud" as it travels through the air.

All the more proof that you should absolutely cover your nose and mouth when you sneeze.