Seeing the unseen: how infrared cameras capture beyond the visible

From the stars to our bodies, heat is everywhere. As long as atoms continue to move around, heat energy is generated and transferred via conduction, convection, or radiation. Heat energy transferred as an electromagnetic wave, similar to light, is known as thermal radiation, and while we can feel heat, we cannot see it.

Infrared cameras, also known as thermographic cameras, differ from cameras that capture images within the visible spectrum. In fact, infrared cameras can only capture images of objects that omit radiation in the infrared region, which can be well beyond our visible threshold of 650 nm.