Question: Why is the grass green?

Hayley Evers-King answered on 13 Mar 2013:

To understand why things are certain colours you have to first understand that light is made up of lots of colours. When you have a rainbow, you can see these colours that white light can be split in to.

The colours you see can be influenced by lots of different things – including pigments and the structure or way a substance is made up and even how your eyes work.

Grass is an example of something which contains pigments – in this case grass contains a pigment called chlorophyll. This is an amazing pigment, as it allows photosynthesis to occur and creates lots of food for us and other animals.

Chlorophyll absorbs blue and red light, but not green. This leaves the green part of light to be reflected back towards your eyes and this is what you see as the colour green. The rest of the light is used as energy for photosynthesis.