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Eye Anatomy

How Your Eyes Work

The human eye is made of many different and intricate parts, all working together to provide you with sight. Your eye is much like a camera in the way that the pieces work together to view the world around you. The eye is a light-gathering device, constructing images of the world around you as rays reflect off of the objects in the environment and travel through your cornea.

The Cornea

At the very front of your eye, is a transparent, dome-shaped lens called the cornea. It covers and protects the iris, and it plays the first role in providing clear vision. As light rays are reflected off of objects in the environment, they enter the eyes through the cornea. The cornea then refracts, or bends, these rays as they pass through the pupil.

The Pupil

This is the round opening in the center of your eye. The pupil’s size determines the amount of light that will enter the eye, and adjusts in accordance with the dilator and the sphincter muscles of the iris.

The Iris

The iris is the colored part of your eye that divides the anterior, or front of the eye from the posterior, or back of the eye. This part is embedded with small muscles that dilate and constrict the pupil size based on the amount of available light. In bright light, the iris’s sphincter muscles tighten and cause the pupil to contract. In dimming light, dilator muscles will increase the size of the pupil.

The Lens

The crystalline lens is located just behind the iris. As light comes through the pupil, the lens focuses this light onto the retina. As it focuses, the lens changes shape to adjust for the closeness or distance of the objects through a process called accommodation. As we grow older, the lens gradually hardens and the ability to accommodate slowly diminishes.

The Retina

The retina is a sensory tissue that lines the back of the eye. The tissue is filled with two types of photo-receptors, rods and cones, which work to create central and peripheral vision. The retina captures light rays and converts them to electrical impulses. These impulses travel along the optic nerve to the brain, where they are then converted to the images that we see around us.





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