The same pigments that enable photosynthesis—chlorophyll a and b—are also responsible for giving most plants their green color.

The chlorophyll in plants captures energy in the form of red and blue light

Virtually all plants are biofluorescent because their photosynthesis is powered by chlorophyll, a pigment that glows red as a way to get rid of excess energy when exposed to ultraviolet light.

Violet is the rarest color in nature because it is the most energetically demanding visible light for pigments to reflect and for nanostructures to scatter.

The majority of the 100,000 natural compounds that produce colors are pigments, which can be categorized based on their chemical structure.

Egg yolks and carrots have the same pigments that contribute to the yellow and orange colors of fall foliage.

Breaking down sunlight and why the sun appears yellow despite emitting green light the most

Imagining if humans could perform photosynthesis and how it would change our anatomy

View a gallery of plants made to shine using ultraviolet-induced visible fluorescence photography, in which organisms re-emit the ultraviolet light they are exposed to in vibrant, glowing colors.

Some organisms' colors come from structural color—tiny structures that distinctly scatter different colors of light, eliminating some while reinforcing others that become visible.

Leaves have orange and yellow pigments year-round, but they are masked until the fall, when shorter days reduce the production of chlorophyll, a green pigment.

Satellites can be used to measure photosynthetic activity worldwide by observing the red, biofluorescent light emitted by chlorophyll in plants.

Photoautotrophs, which include plants, algae, bacteria, and Euglena, are organisms at the base of the food web that convert light energy from the sun into chemical energy stored in sugars.

Rubisco, the crucial enzyme powering photosynthesis

Instead of consuming water and carbon dioxide to produce oxygen and sugar, anoxygenic photosynthesis involves alternative reactants and products.

Not all colored materials can become pigments—the process of grinding materials down into smaller particles may destroy the color-producing molecules.

An overview of oxygenic photosynthesis, which releases oxygen from breaking down water

Starting with red, colorful objects will appear to lose their colors the deeper they are submerged because water scatters light, reducing the amount available to reflect off objects and be observed.

Creating a perfect red pigment that is vivid, durable, and nontoxic is likely impossible.

The three categories of photosynthesis, which each help plants survive in different environments

By separating light with tools such as prisms, scientists can reveal the presence and composition of celestial matter by identifying color fingerprints unique to specific elements and molecules.

The color of bird feathers comes from a combination of pigments and structural color, with the latter enabling some to glow in ultraviolet light.

By converting ultraviolet light into visible light and reflecting specific visible colors, fluorescent pigments can often provide much brighter, neon-like color than traditional pigments.

Some corals absorb harmful ultraviolet radiation and re-emit it as visible light, thereby protecting symbiotic algae within their tissues and providing them with energy for photosynthesis.

How artificial photosynthesis can help make plastics and fuels using sunlight

Humans can distinguish an estimated 10 million colors—a number that is limited by photopigments that only activate when exposed to specific wavelengths of light.

When processing light, the brain can perceive colors with no natural wavelength

Visualize the purpose of stomata in photosynthesis

Organic pigments can be made in a lab or in nature—the term indicates the presence of carbon-hydrogen bonds, not their source.

Blacklights can illuminate certain biological materials, including blood, teeth, and fingernails, because they contain fluorophores—molecules that visibly glow immediately after exposure to higher-energy light.

View a gallery of biofluorescent animals, which contain cells that emit various colors when exposed to ultraviolet light.

The colors of auroras change with the intensity of solar activity and with altitude because of differences in atmospheric density and chemical composition.

Understanding the role of photosynthesis as a sink within the carbon cycle

View an animation of how certain chemicals fluoresce—that is, emit visible light after having absorbed higher-energy light, such as ultraviolet radiation.

Greenhouse gas concentrations can be measured using spectroscopy

Green algae have lived on Earth for about 1 billion years, roughly twice as long as the first plants.

Blood can be blue, green, magenta, or transparent due to differences in the oxygen-carrying respiratory pigments they contain.

Water is naturally tinted with a slight blue, but sediments and organics can alter its color

Sunsets can exhibit a greater variety of colors due to a greater range of cloud heights and atmospheric composition.

El Niño makes the equatorial Pacific Ocean bluer than usual as high temperatures kill off microscopic plants that normally give the waters a green hue.

Some organisms can change color by quickly revealing or hiding various pigments, as seen in octopuses, squids, and other cephalopods.

Watch underwater photosynthesis make water look like champagne

Elysia chlorotica is a sea slug that can photosynthesize, making it an animal with the defining ability of a plant.

Watch a time-lapse of photosynthesis activity across Earth, as seen from space.

Rayleigh scattering of light gives the atmosphere its blue skies and red sunsets

An explanation of the Calvin cycle, including why it needs to run six times to create glucose

Gold has a yellowish appearance rather than the silvery color of most metals because of special relativity, which causes gold's electrons to absorb blue light.

'Watermelon snow'—patches of pink, orange, and red in snow—is the result of extremophilic green algae that thrive in extremely frigid conditions and take the shape of red spheres in winter.

High solar activity can produce pink and purple auroras

How greenhouse gases and climate change impact the efficiency of photosynthesis

Why the abundance of RuBisCO in photosynthetic cells may come from its inefficiency