In this video, we're going to talk a little bit about the electromagnetic spectrum. But first, it's important to note that sunlight will travel millions of miles all the way from our sun to our planet Earth as photons, and photons can be defined as particles of light that have really high kinetic energy and can travel in waves that have different wavelengths. And so the shorter the wavelength is on the photon, the higher the kinetic energy the photon will have. Chloroplasts have the amazing ability to capture the energy that is contained within a photon. We'll be able to talk more about how chloroplasts capture this energy as we move forward in our course in different videos.
Now, the electromagnetic spectrum is really just referring to the range of all possible wavelengths that a photon can have. You'll notice in our image we're showing you the entire electromagnetic spectrum, the range of all possible wavelengths a photon can have. Wavelengths can be very short, and they can also be much longer. Visible light is really just a small fraction or a narrow segment of light within the entire electromagnetic spectrum. This particular wavelength of light, called visible light, is what our eyes are actually able to detect as colors.
At the top here, we have the entire electromagnetic spectrum that ranges from gamma rays that have really, really short wavelengths all the way to radio waves that have really long wavelengths. It's important to note that in the middle, we're showing you the visible light. Visible light is a very small fraction of the entire electromagnetic spectrum. Visible light ranges from wavelengths of about 380 nanometers to about 750 nanometers. This is what is considered the visible wavelengths of light, and this is how we perceive colors within this range.
It's important to note about the entire electromagnetic spectrum that there are waves of different lengths. We have shorter wavelengths on the left-hand side, and these shorter wavelengths correspond with higher energy. But as you move from the left to the right, you'll notice that the wavelengths get longer and longer. Longer wavelengths correspond with lower energy. This concludes our introduction to the electromagnetic spectrum. Moving forward, we are going to be focusing mainly on visible light, the small range within the electromagnetic spectrum that is actually visible to our eyes. We'll focus mainly on that and get some practice applying these concepts as we move forward in our course. I'll see you all in our next video.
