When exposed to light in the visible spectrum, the fabric turns out to be self-cleaning.

FORBES: Nanotechnology May Lead To The End Of Laundry

In addition to taking normal images of the impact in the visible spectrum, the HRI provides an infrared "fingerprint" of the material from inside the comet's nucleus.

BBC: Q&A: Deep Impact comet mission

If the light were not infrared but were instead in the visible spectrum, there was enough of it that the naked eye could have seen a glow, according to Phaedon Avouris , manager of nanometer scale science and technology at IBM (nyse: IBM - news - people ) Research Laboratories in Yorktown Heights, N.

FORBES: IBM Makes Molecule-Sized Light

The MRI takes pictures in the visible light spectrum and provides back-up for the HRI.

BBC: Q&A: Deep Impact comet mission

It arises from light waves in the visible band of the electromagnetic spectrum, the segment with wavelengths of 400 billionths of a metre at the blue end to 700 billionths at the red.

ECONOMIST: Science and history of colour

For example, iron-gall ink, commonly used on ancient documents, is transparent to infra-red light and most visible in the ultraviolet region of the spectrum.

ECONOMIST: Monitor

Only instead of amplifying visible light, it amplifies photons in the X-ray spectrum.

FORBES: Scientists Build The World's Most Powerful Laser