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New imaging system allows us to see UV and visible light simultaneously
The bright green visible light of the numbers and lines at center entered the device as invisible ultraviolet rays. Photo courtesy of Jad Salman
When it comes to light, there’s a lot more than meets the human eye.
While people can see visible light in the wavelength range between 400 and 700 nanometers – that rainbow between violet and red – there’s a lot of information our eyes can’t detect in the slightly longer wavelengths of near infrared and shorter wavelengths of the ultraviolet range. Various systems to make UV light visible to the human eye have been on the market for years and used to inspect electrical insulation and in criminal forensics, astronomy and photography. But those typically require a power source and electronic components.