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Different elements and chemical substances absorb and emit different wavelengths on the electromagnetic spectrum. Carbon dioxide is colorless because the wavelengths that it absorbs and emits are chiefly in the infrared region of the spectrum, which is invisible to human eyes. If human eyes could detect infrared radiation, then we would not think that carbon dioxide is colorless. If our eyes were not able to detect the hazy green wavelengths emitted by chlorine gas, then we would say that chlorine gas is colorless instead of green, and it would never have gotten the name that stems from the Greek word for "green".

Some objects that emit only in the nonvisible portion of the spectrum appear black instead of clear like carbon dioxide. The reason carbon dioxide doesn't appear black is that it is so rarified, being a gas, that most light passes through it instead of being absorbed.

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14y ago

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