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| Fraunhofer lines |
Sunday, September 27, 2015
Elements in the Stars Thoughts
After completing the Elements in the stars project (although I still have things to tie up, research is complete) I now know the purpose of the research. Before I questioned the purpose and I felt that this project was a waste of time. The purpose of the research is to focus on the molecules and understand how stars are made of atoms and molecules just as how earth is made up of molecules. We test molecules and atoms here on earth because we can't just "grab" a piece of star to test. We can determine the chemical abundances of stars by spectroscopy - which is basically passing light through a prism or something similar to break it down into its constituent colors. Then by looking at what colors are missing (absorption lines) we can determine both temperature and composition. Temperature is actually the biggest determinant of what absorption lines are present - but we can disentangle temperature and use the strength of absorption lines or determine compositions.
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I like your thought that we are all made of 'star stuff', but I think one point that you may have overlooked is human ingenuity. What I mean is that who would have thought that by examining light, we could tell chemical composition? While this isn't an insight limited to chemistry, I think it still deserves to be noted and appreciated as a kind of scientific inspiration.
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