*** The Official Astronomy & Universe Thread ***

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Crizzy said:
It's just amazing that we can even begin to analyse the atmosphere of a planet 120 light years away. It's science I can't even begin to comprehend in my little brain :cry:
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Astronomical spectroscopy is actually kind of fascinating especially as some aspects of it were possible to do a long time ago and allowed us to make discoveries about or understand our own planet by observing remote objects in space.
 
Rroff said:
Astronomical spectroscopy is actually kind of fascinating especially as some aspects of it were possible to do a long time ago and allowed us to make discoveries about or understand our own planet by observing remote objects in space.
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It's actually so amazing a lot of people find it hard to grasp and fall back to 'it's magic' without fully understanding the process. I guess that falls outside the scope of this thread :)
 
You basically pass the light through a prism that obtains the spectrum which will contain absorption lines (black lines) that correspond to the same lines on light spectra obtained on earth i.e. you can tell various elements in the objects atmosphere by its absorption lines its like a fingerprint. Infact there were absorption lines in the sun's spectrum that didn't correspond to any known element on earth and it wasn't until helium was discovered on earth that they knew what it was, helium was infact discovered in the sun before it was discovered on earth and was named after helios, the sun god in greek
 
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Blackjack Davy said:
You basically pass the light through a prism that obtains the spectrum which will contain absorption lines (black lines) that correspond to the same lines on light spectra obtained on earth i.e. you can tell various elements in the objects atmosphere by its absorption lines its like a fingerprint. Infact there were absorption lines in the sun's spectrum that didn't correspond to any known element on earth and it wasn't until helium was discovered on earth that they knew what it was, helium was infact discovered in the sun before it was discovered on earth and was named after helios, the sun god in greek
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A Level Physics used to include spectroscopy. I remember using a sodium lamp and diffraction spectroscope to measure angles, calculate frequencies, work back from frequency and Planck's constant to work out electron transitions which can tell you the element. A complex yet straightforward series of activities. (Some of my names may not be 100% accurate it has been 30 years)
 
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Sodium is interesting because it has two very identifiable thick black lines in the yellow/orange spectrum its why the old sodium vapour street lamps looked as orange as they did (emission instead of absorption)
 
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