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The Solar Spectrum |
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Prominent Fraunhofer LinesAs you can see, it's all very pretty. Wollaton (1802) discovered dark lines in the solar spectrum. Fraunhofer (1817) rediscovered them, and noted some were not present in stars - but other stars had more. Brewster (1836) noted that the lines altered with the elevation of the sun. I wonder what that can be about?
There are similar absorption lines in the other regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. Over 25,000 are now known. Each line exactly corresponds to chemical elements in the stars. Wavelengths in the tables are in Angstroms (Å), which is 10-10 m, or 0·1 nm. Sun | Stars |
Selection of Lines
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Sun | Mercury | Venus | Earth | Moon | Mars | Asteroids | Jupiter | Saturn | Uranus | Neptune | Pluto | Kuiper | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
