Unbelievable Facts about Light

Unbelievable and amazing facts about light, especially for school children.

1. Light is the fastest thing in the universe, it travels through space at 300,000 km/sec.
   • Light takes 1.255 seconds to get from the Earth to the Moon.
   • Light takes 8 minutes to travel from the sun to Earth
   • If a beam of light could travel around Earth, it would make 7.5 trips in 1 second
2. Light doesn’t travel as fast through certain mediums (that are different), such as air, water or glass. These mediums cause the light to ‘refract’ and that slows the light down.
   When a beam of sunlight hits a glass prism at an angle, it creates a band of visible colors. Its because different colors travel through glass at different speeds, causing them to refract at different angles and separate from each other (the process is called Refraction).

   A natural example of refraction is Rainbow

3. Sunlight can reach a depth of around 80 metres (262 feet) in the ocean.
4. Light bounces off smooth surfaces. A mirror completely reflects all the light directed at it (known as reflection). A shadow is formed behind an object when it blocks light
5. Telescope & Periscope: Telescope uses special lens that gathers more light than human eye can, which is then used to create a magnified image. Periscope uses two angled mirrors that reflects light, allowing you to see around corners
6. Ultraviolet (UV) light is that part of the spectrum that humans can’t see with naked eye, but many insects can see ultraviolet (UV) light. UV light is used by forensic scientists to see what human eye can’t. UV light is used by forensic scientists to look for clues.
7. Plants use energy from sunlight to convert carbon dioxide into food (process is called Photosynthesis )
8. Scientific study of light is called Optics