A butterfly is said to be a powerful beacon of growth and new beginnings. They say,”This creature flutters its wings in an organic clock, each fluttering a moment until her time of rest.” Each wing of hers is a masterpiece, a canvas splattered by Mother Nature’s own choice of colours. However, it’s intriguing to know that out of the two sources, a butterfly gets its pleasing colours from, one of them is the same phenomenon as observed in a soap bubble!
I mentioned two sources. One of them is pigmentation, and the other is iridescence. For ordinary colour, pigmentation is responsible. By ordinary colour, I mean the colour remains the same no matter how you look at it. For instance, the green colour of leaves. The leaves appear green because chlorophyll absorbs the light of every other wavelength but green. This is why only green light is reflected back and hence the colour. This colour never changes no matter whatever angle you look at it. The same phenomenon is observed in butterfly wings but the pigment here is melanin, which gives them darker colours of yellow, brown and black.
The second phenomenon makes the science complex but finally offers a worthy sight to admire! Iridescence is the phenomenon wherein upon changing your position with respect to the object, you happen to see different colours. Why does that happen, you may wonder? Well, this occurs when light passes through a transparent surface with many different layers, and the light reflects off these many surfaces to give different colours of varying intensities, which change depending on the angle at which you look at it. This is what is observed in a soap bubble! Butterflies are composed of many transparent scales on their wings which contribute to iridescence. Thus, varying from one butterfly to another, these irradiate colours of varying intensities. When light hits a butterfly wing, it goes through multiple layers of these scales, which are separated by air. This makes it reflect many times, and the combination of all these reflections gives the butterfly’s wings their iridescent color.
Thus, the beautiful butterfly is a mesmerizing amalgamation of science and
complexity at its best!
Rijak Kaur Sarla
