How does chlorophyll make a leaf look green?
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Biology,_Answering_the_Big_Questions_of_Life/Photosynthesis
How does chlorophyll make a leaf look green?
Chlorophyll is a green pigment that is responsible for giving leaves their green color. It plays a crucial role in the process of photosynthesis, which is how plants convert sunlight into energy.
To understand how chlorophyll makes a leaf look green, it's important to know that it's part of a larger group of pigments called chloroplasts, which are found in the chloroplasts within plant cells. These chloroplasts are responsible for absorbing light energy from the sun, which is essential for photosynthesis.
Chlorophyll absorbs light best in the blue and red regions of the electromagnetic spectrum, while reflecting or transmitting light in the green region. This means that when white sunlight shines on a leaf, the chlorophyll in the chloroplasts absorbs the red and blue light, but not the green light. The green light is instead reflected or transmitted back to our eyes.
Our eyes then perceive this reflected or transmitted green light, resulting in us seeing the leaf as green. Essentially, the chlorophyll's structure and chemical properties determine which wavelengths of light are absorbed and which are reflected.
To summarize, chlorophyll molecules in the chloroplasts of plant cells absorb sunlight, particularly in the blue and red regions of the spectrum. The green light is not absorbed and is instead reflected or transmitted back, causing the leaf to appear green to our eyes.