[TML] Alien ecologies

[Jerry W Barrington]

On 8/28/08 5:42 AM, "Robert O'Connor" <robocon at ozemail.com.au> wrote:

> Jerry Barrington wrote:
>> No, it is not.  Did you look at the link I mentioned for chlorophyll's
>> absorption spectra?
> 
> No. I used graphs like these:
> http://www.mbari.org/staff/ryjo/cosmos/Cabs.gif
> http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Solar_Spectrum.png

The chlorophyll one looks near enough like the one in the wiki.  So I took
your 2 pics and scaled them the the same scale on the wavelengths, and put
them in 1 pic.

<http://www.geocities.com/jursamaj/MergedGraphs.png>

Remember that the height of the solar spectrum has been squished by a factor
of 10.55, so differences are way more then this makes clear.  Note the the
blue peak of chlorophyll a (the most common form, considered "universal") is
well down from the peak of sunlight, by about 30-38%.  Even the red peak
seems to line up with a dip in the sunlight of about 10%.  That one gets
even worse the further you go above sea level, or under overcast.
Chlorophyll b seems better overall, but is less common than a.