▲ | Y_Y 3 days ago | |
I invite you to consider that most of the light that earth species have had available during their evolution comes from a blackbody emitter at about 6000 kelvins (solar photosphere). https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/physics-and-astronomy/s... | ||
▲ | adrian_b 3 days ago | parent [-] | |
The sensitivity of the eyes is indeed matched to the available light. However the causal dependencies are more complex than this. If the available light would have been from another range of the possible frequencies, the eyes could not have used the same kinds of photoreceptors that are used now in the eyes of all animals. For instance, if the available light would have been only infrared, then photo-chemical reactions could not have been used for detecting it, but such light could have been detected by its warming effect, like some snakes do for detecting infrared. If our star would have been much colder, with negligible visible light, then such light might have been not usable for splitting water and generating free oxygen in the atmosphere. In such a case, the planet would have remained populated only by anaerobic bacteria and viruses, like in the first few billion years of Earth's history. |