Also worth noting here is the question "Why do we see the wavelengths that we do?". It turns out that the answer makes a strong case for the theory of evolution. According to Wien's black body radiation law and Planck's law, we can correlate the temperature of an object with the proportion of photons it emits at each wavelength. Well, wouldn't you know it, for a star with a surface temperature of 6000K (i.e. our sun), the distribution looks like this: For an emerging species looking to make use of the information contained in photons, doesn't it make sense that many evolved to see in wavelengths in which the most photons were available? Yes, other evolutionary advantages were offered by infrared and UV wavelength sensitivity, but I would argue that it's no coincidence so many different creatures utilize the "visible" wavelengths for their primary visual input. It would be fascinating to visit another solar system with a different temperature star and contrast any life that evolved there with what we're familiar with on Earth.