Can we identify distinct "colors" beyond visible light?

Let's talk about the visible light "rainbow"

In almost all depictions of the electromagnetic spectrum, visible light is shown as a rainbow, and adjacent parts of the spectrum are monotone in color - there is no UV or infrared rainbow to be seen.

This is justified - the vast majority of people (animals are a different story) are confined to visible light, so we cannot simply "explain" what an unseeable color looks like. Therefore, it's easiest to assume every wave longer than visible light is representable by "red" and shorter by "violet". We can't color with unseeable colors, so we don't make more rainbows.

In the context of fictional creatures evolving to see different parts of the spectrum (let's ignore the challenges with that for now), can we identify groups of fairly similar waves - the "rainbows" for UV, infrared, etc. to determine the "colors" these creatures might see - or is there really just monotoneness?

Not a duplicate of Colors of Things Outside the Spectrum which asks what humans would see if light were absorbed in a specific way, instead of what other organisms would see if absorption remained generally the same as it does now.

posted almost 8 years ago

Zxyrra‭

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