Skip to content
KinPilot™Learn & Explore
Menu
← TopicsReading path →

Grades K–2 · Organisms

Where do tears go when they leave your eyes?

Tears keep the front of your eyes wet. Your eyelids spread them when you blink. Some tears then leave through tiny openings near the inner corner of each eye. This is the corner closest to your nose.

O103 visual explanationTears enter tiny openings at the inner eyelids, pass through small channels to the tear sac and continue through the nasolacrimal duct into the nose. A supplied snapshot tracks eight invented units: 5 on the eye and 3 drained. New production, evaporation and overflow are excluded from this account. Tube sizes are greatly enlarged, and no drainage rate is calculated.Small channels carry tears from eye to noseEye surfaceTiny openingsSmall channelsTear sacNoseTears follow a hidden route into the nose.Tiny openings and tubes are greatly enlarged.

In the diagramSmall channels carry tears from eye to noseEye surfaceTiny openingsSmall channelsTear sacNoseTears follow a hidden route into the nose.Tiny openings and tubes are greatly enlarged.

Tears pass from small eyelid openings through channels and a tear sac into the nose.

Each opening leads into a small channel. The channels carry tears to a little space called the tear sac. From there, a tube called a tear duct leads down into the nose. Tears can follow this hidden path even when you are not crying.

Tears can leave the eye through this route instead of falling down the cheek. They move from the eye toward the nose through parts hidden below the skin. The eyes and nose are connected by these tiny drainage paths.

About this explanation

Starting knowledge: Know the eye, eyelids and nose.

Sources

  • National Eye Institute — How Tears Work
  • Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust — Dacryocystorhinostomy: Why do my eyes water?
← Grades K–2 topics