Insight Into: The Electromagnetic Spectrum
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How does light, which we interact with in our daily lives, play a role in how we see our surroundings?
Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute’s Office of Public Outreach in collaboration with NASA’s Universe of Learning partners: Caltech/IPAC, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
- Video of rainbow against cloudy blue sky: BuaLily, Adobe
- Video of popcorn in microwave: Dabarti, Adobe
- Animation of electromagnetic spectrum: STScI
- Video of thermal camera: SVTeam, Adobe
- Image of X-ray of teeth: Bojan89, Adobe
- Image of the Hubble Space Telescope over Earth: NASA and ESA
- Image of Milky Way galaxy: Thomas Ciszewski, Unsplash
Music: Bio Creation 1, APM Music.
(DESCRIPTION)
A rainbow peaks through a cloudy sky. Text, When we look at the world around us, we see the only type of light human eyes have evolved to detect: visible light.
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[RHYTHMIC CELESTIAL MUSIC]
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Popcorn pops in a microwave. But objects can emit different kinds of light, and we interact with these various types throughout our daily lives. A starfield in space. All of the different forms of light compose the electromagnetic spectrum. A band of shaded zones with colors in a tight range labeled visible light. To the left is ultraviolet, X-Ray, and gamma ways. And to the right is infrared, microwave, and radio waves. With wave frequency decreasing the further to the right in the spectrum.
A heat vision display. To see non-visible light, we must develop technology. Infrared cameras.
X-ray cameras. A dental X-ray of teeth in a mouth.
Space telescopes. A satellite orbits a planet.
The Milky Way over a Boreal forest in silhouette. What can we learn about our universe by looking beyond visible light?