title is self explanatory.
In: Planetary Science
It is absorbed by pigment compounds in your retinal cells. That then stimulates the cells to fire which ultimately contributes to forming an image in your brain.
If I understand it correctly, which is definitely not guaranteed, the energy of the photon is absorbed by the atom it hits.
It’s probably more complicated than that, lol.
I am going to assume you are talking about the photons that actually go to the inside of your eye. The photons that hit most of the outside of your eye are either reflected or absorbed with nothing too interesting happening. The reflection part is why you can see somebody else’s eyes.
Since you are an adult on reddit, you probably remember from some science class or another that on the back of your eyeball, there is a layer of cells that are called rods or cones. These cells are sensitive to light, and they’re the ones that actually deal with photons.
Let’s say a photon enters your eyeball and successfully hits the back of your eye. This is the first step in producing an image. What happens to it? The rod cells and cone cells that line the back of your eye have special proteins in them. These proteins can actually absorb the energy of the photon and use it to change shape. When the protein that absorbs the photon changes shape, it actually pushes on the membrane of the cell that surrounds it. That triggers a very long and complicated series of steps that might ultimately end up in a signal being sent to your brain that indicates there was light from that cell or a nearby cell (the reason I say a nearby cell is that your nervous system actually combines the signal from several adjacent cells).
So what happens to the photon that enters your eye? It is destroyed. It hits the protein, carrying its energy. It’s absorbed by the protein. The energy that it had is used up to convert that special protein into a different physical shape. So it’s gone.
At the back of the eye are rod and cone cells which contain photoreceptors photopsins and rhodopsin which respond to different amounts and wavelengths of light which assist with night vision. https://youtu.be/IhP91B3_A20
Light -> PEW! -> Rhodopsin -> Excited WOW! -> Charge Produced -> Nerve -> SIGNAL! -> Brain -> SEE!
Light photon hits Rhodopsin Molecule in a STACK Of Discs (Inside a Rod or cone) Covered with Rhodopsin that are bound to ion channels that twist when hit by the photon. The new structure of the molecule opens an ion channel (new path for charged particles) which passes ions through from one side of a membrane to the other. This change in Potential leads to an electrical charge that travels along a nerve and ultimately ends up at the brain.
I believe the technical term is [the hellawhack shizznit that happens inside your brizzle](https://youtu.be/W-yLfm5HsHc?si=Qop2FGiFgfKP3ULc&t=30).
the photon is absorbed by the photoreceptor cells at the back of your eye. this starts a reaction that ends with a nerve signal on your optic nerve which transmits the signal to the visual cortex where your brain makes an image.
To directly answer your question: the photon no longer exists.
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