Why do dark colors retain more heat than light colors??
Although dark-colored objects heat up faster in strong light because they absorb most of the radiation in the visible wavelengths, turning this energy into heat. A lighter-colored or transparent object will either reflect away part of the light or let it pass through the object. In either case, this means part of the light is not absorbed and converted into heat. Although the dark-colored object heats up faster, it also cools off faster because the dark-colored object also radiates light away when the lights go out. Dark colors therefore typically do not retain the heat they have as well as light-colored, reflective, or transparent objects. This is not a hard and fast rule because, for objects of ordinary temperature, the bulk of the radiated light is of a very different wavelength than the light we see by. The same object that is dark at visible wavelengths may be light or transparent at the longer wavelengths, whereas the light (at visible wavelength) object may strongly absorb (and
