Sight and the eye
Sight is one of the five senses that help us receive information about what is going on in the world around us.
We see through our eyes, two organs that take in light and images and send the pictures to our brain. The brain then works out what the eye is seeing.
How do we see?
When light hits an object, it bounces off, passes through our lenses, travels to the retina at the back of the eye and is picked up by special cells there. The image is actually picked up the wrong way around. The brain turns it the right way around.
Pupil and iris
If you take a look at your eyes in the mirror you will see a tiny black hole in the middle of each one. Those black holes are called pupils and that’s where the light goes through.
The coloured part around each pupil is called the iris and it has muscles attached to it, these muscles open and close the pupil making it bigger or smaller, so it can let more or less light in. If it’s too bright the pupil will get smaller to protect the eye. If it’s dark the pupil will open to let more light in.
Retina
Once the light has gone through the pupil it passes through fluids and lands on the retina at the back of the eye. The retina turns the light into signals that the brain can understand. It is made up of two cells, rods and cones.
