Astronomy › Section E · Radiation and spectra › Topic E.3
Spectroscopy in astronomy
Spread starlight out into its colours and you find it crossed by fine dark lines. Those lines are chemical fingerprints, and learning to read them let astronomers work out what stars are made of without ever leaving Earth.
In this topic
- Taking light apart
- Reflection, refraction and dispersion
- Newton's prism and the spectrometer
- Dark lines in sunlight
- Fingerprints in the laboratory
- Three kinds of spectra
- Worked example: what is in this star?
- Worked example: naming the spectrum
- Elements found in the sky
- Common mistakes to avoid
- Key takeaways
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