Why blood turns green deep in the ocean: scientists explain unusual phenomenon

When asked what color your blood is, everyone will, of course, answer that it is red. However, scientists say this is not always the case. No, we are not talking about people of "blue" blood, who have always considered themselves to be of the upper aristocratic class. In fact, under certain circumstances, such as in the ocean, blood turns green.

This is due to the same reason why fish deep in the Twilight Zone of the oceans turned red. The details were reported by Ifl Science.

A scuba diver who was bitten by a moray eel about 20 meters underwater showed that his blood was indeed green.

The reason is quite simple, and you can find the answer even in a school physics course, in the section on light reflection. Red objects appear red because they absorb other spectra of light, reflecting red light.

But the reality is a bit more confusing because objects usually reflect a range of wavelengths of light. Blood absorbs most colors and reflects back light predominantly in the red spectrum. However, it also reflects much smaller amounts of green and blue light.

Water, meanwhile, appears slightly blue due to absorbing a large amount of light in red waves. If you go deep enough, enough red light is absorbed and the green light is reflected back from your eyes (or recording equipment), so you perceive it as a green-blue color.

Because red light is well absorbed by water, many fish that live at depth are red.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) explains the situation as follows: "Black creatures absorb all available colors of light, and red creatures also appear black because there is no red light to reflect and their bodies absorb all other available wavelengths of light. Thus, the deep ocean is dominated by red and black creatures."

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