Eli5 How can the color of something affect the heat it stores?
In: Physics
Colours like white(technically a shade), bright yellow, green are all bright colours. Why? They are bright because they are reflecting a lot of light. So a light colour doesn’t absorb light as much as darker colours like black.
Dark colours absorb the light and because they are absorbing energy and consequently heat up.
By using a highly reflective colour like yellow or a dark absorbing colour like black you can affect how much an item heats up.
Colours appear the way they are BECAUSE of how much heat they reflect/store.
“The case is more, how does the amount of heat stored affect the colour”
White is white because it pretty much reflects everything, black is black because it’s pretty much absorbing everything(and heats), so you are effectively seeing nothing when looking at black (minus any imperfections in the surface which does reflect light)
Hope this is a satisfactory answer
The color determines how much light is reflected back. The more light that is not reflected back, the more light (and consequently heat) is retained. The color does not affect the thermal properties of the object, but it does affect how much light is absorbed.
So a white-colored object will reflect much of the light and its corresponding heat energy and stay comparatively cooler, and a black-colored object will absorb more of the light and its heat energy and get warmer
As explained in other posts the color you see is only the wavelength of the energy reflected back toward your eye. In other words, the rest of the energy is absorbed by the material. More energy absorbed equals more heat.
***BUT…*** with many materials it’s not really the “color” of what you see that determines the heat, but the properties of the material itself. Best example being the heat absorbed by a white car vs a black car. In theory a white car reflects “all” of the visible light back, whereas a black car “none” and should therefore be cooler inside. But the fact that cars are mostly metal, and metal absorbs and retains heat, the color of the car is (for the most part) insignificant.
Light can be absorbed or reflected by an object. White objects reflect all wavelengths of light, black objects absorbs all wavelengths of light. Certain colors will reflect some wavelengths of light while it absorbs others, which is how we *see* or *perceive* different colors. Healthy leaves in the spring are green to us because the leaves absorb all wavelengths of light EXCEPT for green, which it reflects and bounces into our eyes, making it look green. The more light something absorbs, the more energy it absorbs and thus the hotter it gets.
Easy peasy. We gravy? Its a simplified answer.
It can’t. It’s the exact opposite. The color changes depending on the temperature of the material. For example if you heat up iron it turns from black/gray to a red or yellow or even white. This is basically caused by molecules changing and forming new compounds these have different colors but mostly aren’t sable enough to persist after cooling down again (exception eg heat treating a knife after forging gives it a slightly blueish color, this color is persistent)
Are you referring to the emissivity of an object? The fact that black objects radiate heat faster than white ones(in a vacuum, of course)? The ISS uses a special paint which is white in the visible spectrum, but black in the infrared. This allows it to reflect the most light, while also being an excellent emitter in the infrared (which is the range where it’s temp radiates the most).
Basically, if a material can absorb photons efficiently, then it will emit them efficiently.
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