Try Answering These

1. Bees have eyes that see ultraviolet radiation as well as visible light. Moths, on the other hand, only see visible light, like us. If you were a flower who wanted only bees and not moths to visit you, what could you do to make sure bees (and not moths) get the message?

2. Snakes' eyes are sensitive to infrared radiation. This makes them good hunters at night in the dark. Why?

3. The Sun puts out most of its light at visible wavelengths. As creatures on earth evolved, they developed eyes that respond to the short wavelengths of visible light. Imagine that you are a being on a planet whose Sun puts out most of its light at radio wavelengths, and you don't see the wavelengths of light visible to us on Earth. Do you think you would see the "colors" of radio light?

4. Our atmosphere is turbulent--wind and heat from the ground move the air around. This causes the light from stars to twinkle when we look at them from the ground. Do planets twinkle?

5. Humans are nearly blind to most wavelengths of light. If you lost your ability to see visible light, but could choose another wavelength region of the electromagnetic spectrum, what would you choose? Describe how you would see the world around you.

6. How would you prepare yourself to view the light from a solar eclipse as compared to the light coming from a lunar eclipse?

7. The water molecules in our atmosphere stop infrared rays that come from the Sun and other stars. If you built a telescope on the ground to study infrared light coming from distant stars, where would you locate it and why?