Before we get too far along on the trail, to explain the details of color we first need to understand some of the fundamentals of light. There’s a bit of math, but it’s mostly there to simply show the relationship between things. The “Marvel origin story” of color starts with electromagnetic radiation. Electromagnetic radiation is the means by which energy is transmitted over distance. This could be short distances such as the infrared radiation felt as heat coming off of a campfire and warming my hands or the light from the headlights on my Toyota Corolla reflecting off a deer on a dark country road. Electromagnetic radiation also travels large distances such as radio waves transmitted from an AM radio station which can travel hundreds of miles, to the red light emanating from the star Betelgeuse in the constellation Orion, which can carry energy from that star to my eyes on a cold winter night a staggering distance of about 700 light years, which is more than 4,000,000,000,000,000 miles.