You may remove your prescription eyewear to look in the mirror and acknowledge how complex your eyes are, but it does not stop there. Only a small amount of your eyes’ parts are exposed, everything else is hidden behind your eyelids.
Eyes not only allow you the ability to see the world around you, experience the beauty of a rainbow and read your favorite Harry Potter book for the fifth time; eyes also help you experience excessive joy and sadness through tears, which is why it is important to purchase prescription eyewear if necessary. But how are eyes so amazing? What makes them work?
The eye is an asymmetrical globe, very similar in size to a ping pong ball, which sits in the eye socket of the skull. When looking at your eye, the white part of your eyeball is called the sclera. The sclera is a dense, white, fibrous membrane that covers most of the eyeball. Within the sclera, you see ‘pink threads’ that are blood vessels that deliver blood to the sclera.
There is a mucous membrane that lines the visible part of the eye and inner surface of the eyelid, this is called the conjunctiva. This helps to lubricate the eye and prevent the entrance of bacteria by producing mucus and tears. If you wear prescription corrective lenses, you will have to use an eye solution to aid the conjunctiva with lubrication, as corrective lenses can soak up all of the mucus and make your eyes dry. It is also important to be careful and maintain the health of your eyes, by disinfecting your contact lenses, so that you do not develop conjunctivitis.
The cornea is a transparent dome that sits in front of the colored part of the eye. A cornea’s main purpose is to regulate the amount of light entering the eye. This is a very crucial part of the eye’s anatomy, but can hardly be seen because it is clear. Think of the cornea like a clear glass window giving you the ability to see the world outside of a room, without taking much recognition for its job.
Giving your eye beauty and distinction is the much-loved iris. The iris is the colored part of your eye that surrounds the pupil. This pigmented membrane lies between the cornea and lens and will widen or narrow the opening called the pupil; the round, dark center of the eye which opens and closes to regulate the amount of light the retina receives.
In between the cornea and iris is the anterior chamber. The anterior chamber is a fluid-filled space that nourishes the eye and maintains its overall health. Two main pathologies of the anterior chamber are the hyphema and glaucoma.
The posterior chamber is the narrow space behind the iris and in front of the lens. The lens is a nearly spherical body in the eye that focuses light rays onto the retina. The retina is the sensory membrane in the back of the eye that receives that images formed by the lens and converts them into signals that are sent to the brain. These electrical signals are carried by the optical nerve and intercepted by the visual cortex of the brain through photoreceptor cells in the retina. There are two types of photoreceptor cells: rods, which convert light into black and white information, and cones, that convert light into colored information.
Learn more about your eyes and purchase discount eyeglasses to protect your eyes or correct your vision online today!