A striking feature evident in the images shown in Fig. 2 is the differing axial-to-radial aspect ratios for the two components of the cloud. In the clouds with no condensate ([v.sub.evap] > 4.23 MHz) and in the noncondensate fraction of the colder clouds, the velocity distribution is isotropic (as evidenced by the circular shape of the yellow to green contour lines in Fig. 2, A and B). But the condensate fraction clearly has a larger velocity spread in the axial direction than in the radial direction (Fig. 2, B and C). This difference in aspect ratios is readily explained and in fact is strong evidence in support of the interpretation that the central peak is a Bose-Einstein condensate. The noncondensate atoms represent a thermal distribution across many quantum wave functions. In thermal equilibrium, velocity distributions of a gas are always isotropic regardless of the shape of the confining potential. The condensate atoms, however, are all described by the same wave function, which will have an anisotropy reflecting that of the confining potential. The velocity spread of the ground-state wave function for a noninteracting Bose gas should be 1.7 ([8.sup.1/4]) times larger in the axial direction than in the radial direction. Our observations are in qualitative agreement with this simple picture. This anisotropy rules out the possibility that the narrow peak we see is a result of the enhanced population of all the very low energy quantum states, rather than the single lowest state.