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 Photo Credits: Cover: Digital Vision/PictureQuest; p. 2: Corbis Sygma; pp. 4–5:
Royalty-Free/Corbis; p. 6: NASA/STSci Cornell/Corbis, Corbis; p. 7: NOAO; pp. 8–9:
Getty Images; p. 10: NASA/Photo Researchers, Inc.; p. 11: Time Life Pictures/Getty
Images; p. 12: David Ducros/Photo Researchers, Inc.

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 Visit The Learning Site!
www.harcourtschool.com

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 Time or Distance?
“Steer the ship to the moons of Ptolemy 5,
Lieutenant.”
“But those are 3 light years away, Captain!”
“Exactly. Put on your seatbelt. It’s going to be
a long trip.”
You’ve probably heard this kind of conversation on
TV or in a movie that takes place in outer space. What is
a light year: time or distance?
It’s sort of both. A light year measures distance, but
the measurement it uses is the distance light would
travel in a year in a complete vacuum--empty space.
Because light is so fast, it would go very far in that time.
Scientists use the term because it is easier to say “1 light
year” than 9,460,730,472,580,800 meters, which is the
same distance. That’s almost 9.5 quadrillion meters.
Earth is much closer to our sun than a light year. As
a matter of fact, they’re only about 8.3 light minutes
apart. That means light leaving the sun takes about 8.3
minutes to reach Earth. The moon is even closer: about
1.3 light seconds away.

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Beam Me Up!
Besides being fast, light is known for how straight it
travels. It’s not just as “straight as an arrow;” it’s much,
much straighter. One form of light, lasers, are often
used to make sure things are lined up correctly. Light
travels in such a direct line that scientists on Earth can a
shoot a laser beam up to reflectors left on the moon by
astronauts...and the beam bounces right back to where
it was sent. That’s a journey of about 750,000 kilometers.
Talk about straight!

This laser at the

University of
California’s Lick
Observatory helps
astronomers focus
their telescopes.

Astronauts left this special

reflector on the moon in
1969. It still works...and it’s
smaller than your desk!
3
 A Clown Car of Color
Have you ever seen a routine where clowns keep
coming out of a tiny little car? Light from the sun is a
lot like that car: it packs a lot in. What appears to be
white light to us is actually bursting with colors. The
colors in light become visible when the light hits a prism.
The prism refracts--or bends--the light and produces
a spectrum of colors. From the top to the bottom, the
spectrum is red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet.
The spectrum actually has every color you can imagine...
and some you can’t. We can’t see ultraviolet, for
example, but we can see (and feel!) what it does to us:
sunburn.
Just like water in the ocean, light travels as waves.
The waves all travel at the same speed, but some
are very close together, and some farther apart. The
wavelength of light determines its color. Red has the
longest wavelength of the colors we see, and violet has
the shortest. That’s why they appear on opposite ends of
the spectrum. The shorter the wavelength, the more the
light gets refracted by the prism.

Visible Light Region of the

Electromagnetic Spectrum

PM PM PM PM

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 Light often gets refracted when it moves from one
medium, such as air, to another, such as a glass prism.
Even drops of water can refract light into colors. When
this happens in the sky, we get a rainbow. Not all
refraction splits light into its colors, though. Some just
seems to bend the light. If you put a straw half into a
glass of water, for example, the straw will appear bent
or broken because the water refracts the light and
makes the straw appear in a different place. The straw
hasn’t changed, though: the light has.>

<The glass of water

refracts light to make
this straw look broken.

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 A lens will also refract light, but usually without
breaking it into separate colors. We use lenses in glasses,
contact lenses, telescopes, microscopes and many other
everyday things. A magnifying glass refracts light
coming through it to a small focus point. It is called
a converging lens because the light beams coming
through it converge--or meet--at a point.
Many other objects--like those special reflectors left
on the moon--reflect light. A mirror is so reflective and
smooth that you can see yourself in it. When an object
is rough or bumpy, light scatters off its surface in all
directions. That’s why you can see yourself in a mirror,
but not in a crumpled piece of aluminum foil.

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 Blue Noon
When scientists talk about light’s speed and other
properties, they often talk about how light behaves in a
vacuum. A vacuum is space that is so empty, there’s not
even air there. But we don’t live in a vacuum; that’s why
we have blue skies and red sunsets!
As light moves through Earth’s atmosphere,
particles and gases cause some of the light to scatter,
just like when they hit a rough surface. Light with
shorter wavelengths--the blue end of the spectrum-
-gets scattered much more than light with longer
wavelengths. Blue light scatters so much that it appears
to come from all directions. That’s why the sky seems
blue--at least between sunrise and sunset. When the
sun is rising or setting though, its light passes through
much more of Earth’s atmosphere than in the middle of
the day. As a result, the blue end of the spectrum gets
scattered almost completely out of the sunlight. That
leaves the yellows, oranges and reds to shine through
brightly...pretty as a postcard.

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Wish

San Diego, CA
7

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 A World of Color
If sunlight appears “white” or colorless, why do you think
our world is full of colors? The answer may surprise you.
Think an apple is red? Think again.
Prisms and pure water are transparent, meaning
most light passes through them. Other objects, such as
a sheet of paper or a frosted light bulb, are translucent:
they allow only some light to pass through. But apples
and most of the things we see as colored are opaque.
They don’t allow light to pass through. What happens
instead? Light either bounces off them--reflection--or it
gets absorbed into them like a sponge sucks up water.
And when light hits them from one side, a shadow
appears on the other side as a dark area.
Our world doesn’t appear to be just shades of light
and dark, though. It’s colorful! That’s because most
objects absorb or reflect certain wavelengths of light. So
that must mean an apple absorbs red, right?
Actually, apples
reflect red and absorb
every other color--that’s
why they appear red to
us. White light hits the
apple, the apple absorbs
every color but red, and
red light bounces off
the apple and into our
eyes. Oranges absorb

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 red and every other color except orange, which they
reflect into our eyes. Bright objects reflect more light,
and dark objects less light.
Not all light is white, though. Think of the trouble
we would have if traffic lights didn’t have the red,
green, and yellow light to tell drivers what to do! Lasers
often shine in a very specific shade of color that depends
on the material used to produce them. A ruby laser, for
example, has a wavelength of about 694 nanometers—
that’s “red” to you and me.

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 Focus on the Eye
The eye is an amazing tool for seeing light. Light
enters the eye through the pupil, which is the dark area
in the center of the eye. The iris, which is the colored
ring around the pupil, is actually a muscle. It opens the
pupil up wide to let in more light when it’s dim, and
closes it to a tiny size when it’s bright to protect the
inner eye from too much light. Like sunglasses you were
born with!
After light enters through the pupil, it passes through
the lens. It’s just like a glass converging lens, but much
more sensitive. The lens can actually change its own
shape to focus more accurately on the back of the eye,
called the retina. The retina has two kinds of light-
sensing cells, called rods and cones. These photoreceptor
cells sense all the light that makes up what we “see.”

retina lens

pupil

iris

10

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 There are about 20 times as many rods as cones. The
rods can’t really sense color, but they are more sensitive
to light and help us to see at night. Cones sense color
and come in three kinds. One kind is very sensitive to
reddish light, another to bluish light, and the third
to greenish light. The rods and three types of cones
communicate what they sense to the brain through a
nerve at the back of the eye. The brain pieces all the
information together and that’s what we see.

The Earth has so many artificial lights that it can

be hard to see faint stars and other dim objects.
This picture shows Earth at night. Can you see where
there might be problems with ‘light pollution?’

11

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 The eyesight of individuals varies greatly. What is
20/20 vision? It’s a measure of visual acuity. If you have
20/20 vision, it means you can see small details from 20
feet away as well as someone with standard vision can
from 20 feet. So, 20/40 vision is not as sharp: it means
you can see the same details at 20 feet as someone with
standard vision can see from 40 feet away. Someone
lucky enough to have 20/15 vision can see as well at 20
feet away as a person with standard vision can see at 15
feet.
Many animals can see better than humans in one
way or another. Bees and butterflies can see ultraviolet.
Some snakes can see infrared--which is beyond red on
the other end of the spectrum. Birds have at least four
different cones in their retinas--so they can distinguish
colors better within our range--and many can also see in
the ultraviolet range. The visual acuity of hawks may be
as good as 20/2. That means they can see details as well
at 20 feet as most humans can see at 2 feet!
Humans don’t have the eyes of these animals, but
we have something they don’t: the ability to make tools
such as telescopes, ultraviolet cameras, infrared (or
“night vision”) goggles and other devices that greatly
expand what we can see in the world.
And that’s out of sight!

12

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 Think and Write
1. How long would it take for a laser to leave Earth, hit
reflectors on the moon, and return to Earth? How do
you know?
2. Explain the difference between reflection and
absorption.
3. Why do you think scientists might develop ultraviolet
cameras and infrared goggles?
4. Persuasive Writing Write one paragraph arguing
that light pollution is just as bad as air and water
pollution...or arguing that light pollution is not as
bad as other pollution.

Hands-On Activity
Quick Flick Use a meter stick to measure the length
of your room. If it takes a flicker of light one three-
hundred-millionth of a second to travel one meter,
about how long would it take light to cross your room?
Put the length of the room in meters over 300, reduce
the fraction if you can, and then add six zeroes to the
bottom number. That will show how many seconds it
will take.

School-Home Connection
Eyes on the Prize Survey your family members to find
out if they wear glasses or contact lenses. With your
class, make a chart showing how many people wear
glasses or contacts.

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