Why does urine look colourless when being released, but appears yellow when you pee into something and look into it?

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Why does urine look colourless when being released, but appears yellow when you pee into something and look into it?

In: Biology

2 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Because of the depth of material you’re looking through.

When urine comes out as a thin stream, that yellow color is still there, but faint. It’s also picking up air as it falls which adds to the loss of color. But once it hits the cup or toilet bowl, instead of looking at a 3/16″ steam of liquid, you’re looking at a few inches of liquid.

Same concept as water in a lake or sea. You can scoop up a glass of water and it looks perfectly clear, but when you look at the body of water, it looks blue, brown, or green (depending on how much algae, dirt, or pollution is in it).

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