Hi, Kia!
They didn’t specifically say what light source they were using, but the videographer (David Gruber) uses a blue light according to some of his other work. I assume it’s the same equipment. If I had to make an educated guess, I’d guess that the light is probably near 488 nm since that’s commonly used to excite fluorescent stuff in the lab. Fluorescent things don’t just reflect the light, either–they actually absorb it and then give off light of a different color. The absorbed light has to be higher energy than the light given off. Blue light (and UV) are higher energy than green or red–so in this case, the turtle can absorb the blue light and then give off green or red or both!
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Hi Christina,
Is the glowing turtle reflecting artificial UV light?
Hi, Kia!
They didn’t specifically say what light source they were using, but the videographer (David Gruber) uses a blue light according to some of his other work. I assume it’s the same equipment. If I had to make an educated guess, I’d guess that the light is probably near 488 nm since that’s commonly used to excite fluorescent stuff in the lab. Fluorescent things don’t just reflect the light, either–they actually absorb it and then give off light of a different color. The absorbed light has to be higher energy than the light given off. Blue light (and UV) are higher energy than green or red–so in this case, the turtle can absorb the blue light and then give off green or red or both!