• Question: is there any other rays from the sun other than UVs

    Asked by 238furk43 to Chris, Joanne, Kathryn, Kieran, Sarah on 8 Nov 2017.
    • Photo: Kathryn Schoenrock

      Kathryn Schoenrock answered on 8 Nov 2017:

      The sun emits a wide range of rays- or wavelengths. We measure wavelengths or rays by size so UV is small and has a size range of 400-10 nm. A nanometer (nm) is one meter divided by 100000000 so this is very tiny. What we can see (can’t see UV until you get a sunburn!) is the visible rays- the rainbow which is 400-700 nm. 400 nm is blue, then comes green, yellow, orange, red and the largest is the infrared around 700nm… When you have rain or fog in the air these rays break apart into individual wavelengths which is why we see all the colors of the rainbow.

    • Photo: Sarah Guerin

      Sarah Guerin answered on 8 Nov 2017:

      Yeah lots! There are the visible rays that we see, as well as X-rays, Infrared rays, and even radio waves.

    • Photo: Chris Werner

      Chris Werner answered on 9 Nov 2017:

      Yes, definitely, otherwise we couldn’t see! There is of course the visible light spectrum from violet to red (you can see this if you shine light through a prism or indeed a rainbow!), uv which you mention with wavelengths shorter than the violet end of the visible light spectrum and then infrared. Different animals have evolved differently to see slightly different wavelengths than we do. These three types (visible, infrared and uv) make up 99% of the light the sun emits.

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