Part One                   Entire Article                         Part Two      

                Sunlight and Color (Part Three)

 By José Reyes  

         The Sun releases all the essential ingredients for life to exist by way of sunlight but it also provides all the Earth's inhabitants with color. It's amazing to understand this because all we see is ordinary "White" light. When we look at the Sun directly. There are a couple of factors concerning electromagnetic waves to learn about, before being able to understand  natural sunlight and artificial light.

                            Light Waves and Wavelength of Colors 

              Light is a form of radiant energy, consisting of pieces of energy or particles "Photons" and it travels in electromagnetic waves.The visible spectrum from red (at left) to violet (at right). These waves have "High Points" and "Low Points", and the difference between those highs and lows and the next is called a Wavelength. Here on the <Left<  we see an example of an electromagnetic spectrum of "Visible Light" seen through a prism.  Each color has a different wavelength. Red has the longest wavelength and Violet has the shortest wavelength.Image of a rainbow. When all the waves are seen together, they make White light. This can be seen by looking at a rainbow through water vapor acting as a natural prism. >Right>> The amount of energy in a wavelength depends on the length. The shorter the wavelength the stronger the energy, the longer the wavelength the weaker the energy. Now remember, these are the visible light waves that humans can see, the "white" light of the Sun carries all the variation of colors available and each color is recognized by its own wavelength. Remember the Human eye could only see these colors: 

 Learn More About:    The Human Eye   Rods and Cones  

Here  wavelengths of the visible colors humans can see:
Red 780 to 622 nm
Orange 622 to 597 nm
Yellow 597 to 577 nm
Green 577 to 492 nm
Blue 492 to 455 nm
Violet  455 to 390 nm
Note: 1 nm (nanometer) = 10-9 m

       

                                          Making A Prism:   

 WWW.eosweb.larc.nasa.gov/EDDOCS/RadiationBudget/prism                  

                                    More Websites on Light:   

 The History of Light 

 Infrared Light 

 Ultraviolet Light  

                                         Conclusion 

             I hope my research provided all the readers with enough information to understand  the Sun and Sunlight. With this article and the websites (Links) on it, all the readers, can go further on and learn more in detail by searching through the internet or reading a couple of text books. 

               So next time the light of the Sun bothers your eyes, remember, without this powerful Star we wouldn't even be here.    "Long live the Sun"!!!

                                     

  SciSim@Cubanology.Com 

     Part One                 Entire Article                                Part Two