Using Emission Spectra to Determine What Stars are Made Of
Summary
TLDRThe video script dives into the fascinating world of spectroscopy, a technique that allows scientists to determine the composition of stars without physically sampling them. It explains that stars, like our Sun, are made of gas that emits light, and by analyzing the light through a spectroscope, we can identify the unique emission spectra of different elements. The video uses examples of emission spectra from hydrogen, helium, nitrogen, and other elements to illustrate how each element has a distinct spectral fingerprint. It then applies this knowledge to reveal the composition of our Sun, which contains hydrogen and helium, and further explores the emission spectra of other stars to identify their elemental makeup. The script also highlights the broader applications of spectroscopy in understanding the composition of planets like Jupiter, nebulae like the Orion Nebula, and even entire galaxies. It concludes by emphasizing the dominance of hydrogen and helium in the universe, as revealed through spectroscopic studies.
Takeaways
- 🌞 The Sun is our nearest star and it plays a crucial role in powering photosynthesis, driving weather processes, and illuminating our days.
- 🌌 There are countless stars in the universe, with only a fraction visible to us at night, and scientists use spectroscopy to determine their composition.
- 🔬 Spectroscopy is the study of light, allowing us to observe and analyze the light emitted by stars to understand what they are made of.
- 🤔 Stars are made of gas, primarily hydrogen, which can be demonstrated through experiments with glowing gas tubes.
- 🌈 An emission spectrum is a pattern of light that can be split into its component colors, which is unique to each element.
- 🚀 By comparing a star's emission spectrum to known emission spectra of elements, scientists can identify the elements present in a star.
- 🔍 The Sun's emission spectrum reveals the presence of hydrogen and helium, which are its main components.
- 🌟 Star A's emission spectrum contains hydrogen and lithium, Star B contains carbon and helium, and Star C contains oxygen and helium.
- 🌈 Star D's spectrum is more complex, containing carbon, helium, and hydrogen, while Star E contains oxygen, carbon, and helium.
- 🌠 Star F's spectrum, the most challenging, reveals the presence of nitrogen, helium, and hydrogen.
- 📚 Spectroscopy has been instrumental in understanding the composition of our solar system's planets, nebulae, and even distant galaxies.
- 📊 The universe is predominantly composed of hydrogen and helium, with trace amounts of other elements like oxygen and carbon.
Q & A
What is the primary source of energy for life on Earth?
-The primary source of energy for life on Earth is the Sun, which provides light energy that powers photosynthesis in plants and drives weather processes.
How do scientists determine the composition of stars if it's impossible to take a sample?
-Scientists use spectroscopy, the study of light, to determine the elements that make up stars by analyzing the light emitted by these celestial bodies.
What is an emission spectrum and how is it used to identify elements in stars?
-An emission spectrum is a pattern of bright colored lines produced when light is split up into its component colors. Each element has a unique emission spectrum, which can be used to identify the elements present in stars by comparing the observed spectrum with known emission spectra of elements.
What is the significance of the emission lines in an emission spectrum?
-Emission lines in an emission spectrum are significant because each line corresponds to a specific element. By identifying these lines, scientists can determine which elements are present in a star.
How does the color of the light emitted by a glowing gas relate to its composition?
-The color of the light emitted by a glowing gas is related to its composition because different elements emit light at different wavelengths, resulting in different colors. This is used in spectroscopy to identify the elements.
What elements are most abundant in the universe according to spectroscopic analysis?
-According to spectroscopic analysis, the most abundant elements in the universe are hydrogen and helium, with hydrogen being the most prevalent.
How does the emission spectrum of a star differ from that of a gas discharge tube?
-The emission spectrum of a star is more complex than that of a gas discharge tube because a star's spectrum is composed of the combined emission spectra of all the elements present in the star, while a gas discharge tube typically contains only one or a few elements.
What are some of the elements that can be identified in the Sun's emission spectrum?
-Some of the elements that can be identified in the Sun's emission spectrum include hydrogen and helium, which are the most abundant elements in the Sun.
How does spectroscopy help in understanding the composition of distant celestial objects like galaxies?
-Spectroscopy helps in understanding the composition of distant celestial objects like galaxies by analyzing the light they emit. The presence of certain elements can be inferred from the characteristic emission lines in their spectra, allowing scientists to draw conclusions about their composition.
What is the role of spectroscopy in determining the composition of planetary atmospheres?
-Spectroscopy plays a crucial role in determining the composition of planetary atmospheres by analyzing the light that passes through or is emitted by the atmosphere. The presence of different elements and compounds can be identified through their unique emission or absorption spectra.
Outlines
🌟 Understanding Stars Through Spectroscopy
The video begins with an introduction to the sun as our nearest star, which is vital for life on Earth by providing light and heat. It explains the challenge of determining the composition of stars, which are far away and presumably very hot, making it difficult to take samples. The main tool for this task is spectroscopy, which is the study of light. The video demonstrates how different elements, such as hydrogen and helium, produce unique emission spectra when they are glowing. By using a spectroscope, one can split light into its component colors and identify the elements present in a star by matching the observed spectrum with known emission spectra of elements.
🌌 Identifying Elements in Stars Using Emission Spectra
The video continues by illustrating how scientists use the emission spectra of known elements to identify which elements are present in stars. It provides examples of emission spectra for the sun and other stars, showing how the presence of hydrogen and helium can be detected. The video emphasizes that to confidently identify an element, every individual emission line associated with that element must be present in the observed spectrum. It also discusses how the technique of spectroscopy has been used to study the composition of other celestial bodies, such as Jupiter and the Orion Nebula, and even to estimate the composition of the entire universe, which is predominantly made of hydrogen and helium.
🔍 Advanced Spectroscopy: Pinpointing Elements in Star Spectra
The third paragraph delves into more complex examples of emission spectra, challenging viewers to identify multiple elements within the spectra of different stars. It demonstrates how stars can be composed of various elements, such as carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and others, in addition to hydrogen and helium. The video highlights the importance of persistence and careful analysis when using emission spectra to identify elements in stars. It concludes by reiterating the goal of the video, which is to enable viewers to use spectroscopy to determine the elements that make up a star, and encourages revisiting the video for better understanding if needed.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Sun
💡Stars
💡Spectrometry
💡Emission Spectrum
💡Hydrogen
💡Helium
💡Gas Discharge Tubes
💡Nitrogen
💡Carbon
💡Lithium
💡Oxygen
💡Composition of the Universe
Highlights
The sun is our nearest star and provides the energy for photosynthesis, weather processes, and daylight.
Stars are made of gas and emit light, and scientists use spectroscopy to determine their composition.
Spectrometry is the study of light, allowing scientists to view and observe the elements that make up stars.
Experiments with glowing gas, such as hydrogen, can help us understand the composition of stars.
A spectroscope can split light into its component colors, revealing an element's unique emission spectrum.
Different elements produce unique emission spectra, which can be used to identify them in stars.
The sun's emission spectrum reveals the presence of hydrogen and helium.
Emission lines in a star's spectrum can be compared to known element spectra to identify their composition.
Star A's emission spectrum contains hydrogen and lithium.
Star B's spectrum reveals the presence of carbon and helium.
Star C contains oxygen and helium, as identified through its emission spectrum.
Star D's complex emission spectrum includes carbon, helium, and hydrogen.
Star E's emission spectrum shows the presence of oxygen, carbon, and helium.
Star F's tricky spectrum contains nitrogen, helium, and hydrogen.
Spectroscopic analysis of Jupiter's atmosphere reveals it is mostly composed of hydrogen and helium.
The Orion Nebula's composition can be determined through spectroscopy, showing hydrogen, oxygen, and ionized sulfur.
Spectroscopic studies of the Andromeda galaxy reveal the presence of carbon dust and hydrogen gas.
The universe is predominantly composed of hydrogen and helium, with trace amounts of other elements.
The goal of the video is to teach viewers how to use spectroscopy to determine the elements that make up a star.
Transcripts
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the sun is our nearest star
it provides the light energy that powers
photosynthesis
in plants its heat drives
pretty much every weather process
and of course it provides the light that
illuminates our day
and the sun is not the only star out
there
there are trillions and trillions of
other stars in the universe
a small small fraction of which are
visible to us at night time
but what is a star such as our sun made
of being very far away and presumably
very hot
it's hard to see how you could take a
sample of the sun's material this is
probably impossible
so how do scientists figure out what the
sun
is made of and this is in fact the goal
of this video we want to be able to use
spectroscopy
to determine the elements that make up a
star
and spectroscopy is just a term for the
study of light
spectro means light or color and scopy
means to view or
observe
so in this video we're learning about
stars now there's probably a couple of
assumptions we can make right now
one of them is that stars are made out
of gas you've probably heard that before
and the other is that stars emit light
they're literally balls of glowing gas
well i have the ability here to actually
produce some glowing gas
and we might be able to figure out
something about stars by investigating
our glowing gas
this is a power source and here i have a
tube
this tube has two metal contacts on the
end and it's filled with a gas
the gas this tube contains is hydrogen
it's element number one on the periodic
table so let's plug that in
and flip the switch
that is a glowing gas a little bit like
the glowing gas that a star might be
made out of
now would you believe me if i told you
that you could take the light
from that glowing gas and figure out
what colors it's made out of
you can split it up into its component
colors
well to do that we can use an instrument
called a spectroscope
let's take a look and see what the
spectroscope tells us about the light
from this glowing hydrogen gas
look at that so our spectroscope can
split up the light from hydrogen
into its component colors each of these
bright
colored lines is called an emission line
and this is the emission spectrum for
hydrogen
let's take a look at a couple of other
elements
the gas in this emission tube is helium
this is element number two on the
periodic table
notice right away that glowing gas is a
different color
all right that is the emission spectrum
for
helium gas notice that the emission
spectrum is completely different
the emission lines are different
brightnesses different colors
in different places
here's the emission spectrum for
nitrogen gas
here's neon
argon
and mercury
so we see that each different element
gives us
a different emission spectrum they all
have different emission lines
let's head to the drawing board and
figure out how to use those emission
lines
to tell what kinds of elements we find
in stars
so let's see if we can use a star's
emission spectrum
to identify which elements are in that
star
recall that an emission spectrum looks a
little bit like a rainbow
and that each of these colored lines is
an emission line
in this emission spectrum and keep in
mind that
a lot of times when you see an emission
spectrum it's shown in black and white
so rather than colored lines what we see
here are black lines
which simply represent those bright
bands of color we saw earlier
and by observing gas discharge tubes
like the ones we saw earlier
we know the emission spectra for pretty
much all known
elements here are just a few elements
along with their corresponding emission
spectra
that we'll use in some examples
for our first example let's try to use
an emission spectrum to identify which
elements we'll find in our
own sun here is a simple example of our
sun's emission spectrum
it's a mystery spectrum in that we don't
immediately know
which elements are in it
if we compare this mystery spectrum to
the spectra of elements that we
already know we can align them and find
out which elements are found
in the mystery spectrum carefully
examine
the emission spectrum for our sun
there are two elements hidden in our
sun's emission spectrum
see if you can identify which elements
those are
you might want to pause at these
intervals to give yourself as much time
as you want to figure out which elements
the mystery spectrum has
after careful analysis you might have
been able to identify
the emission lines for the element
hydrogen indicated here
in red but you'll also notice a variety
of lines that don't belong to hydrogen
those lines belong to the element helium
that means that our sun contains the
elements hydrogen
and helium and both of those elements
show up
in its emission spectrum
let's look at some more examples
this is the emission spectrum for star a
star a contains two elements can you
identify
which two elements are hidden in the
emission spectrum for star
a
after careful analysis you should have
been able to identify
the emission lines for hydrogen
indicated here in red and lithium
whose lines are indicated here in green
this means that star a contains the
elements hydrogen
and lithium by the way
the order in which you identify the
elements doesn't matter
however to be able to confidently say
that you spotted
a specific element in an emission
spectrum you technically have to be able
to identify
each and every individual emission line
that that
element produced if even one emission
line from that element
is missing that means that the element
is not present
in the star let's look at another
example
star b once again there are
two elements found in star b
and these ones are a little trickier
than the elements we found in the
previous example
look at the mystery spectrum for star b
and see if you can identify which
two elements are found in this star
after carefully analyzing the emission
spectrum for star b
the first element you probably
identified was
carbon indicated here in gold
these lines which don't belong to carbon
belong to
helium indicated here in blue
that means that star b contains both
carbon and
helium the next example once again
contains
two elements in star c
can you identify which two elements are
found in this star by using the emission
spectrum
if you looked carefully you should have
been able to identify the elements
oxygen indicated here in a pinkish hue
and helium indicated here in blue
that means that star c contains oxygen
and
helium
star d is our first example that
contains
three elements carefully examine the
emission spectrum and see if you can
pick out which
three elements are in star d
with any luck you should have been able
to identify
carbon's emission spectrum pretty
quickly indicated here in gold
then hopefully you identified the
emission lines for helium
indicated here in blue and finally
hidden among this forest of emission
lines are the three emission lines for
hydrogen
indicated here in red this means that
star d contains the elements
carbon helium and hydrogen
note that hydrogen and lithium because
their emission spectra are so
simple are often the most difficult to
find in a complex emission spectrum
example e is the emission spectrum for
yet another star that contains three
elements
see if you can identify which three
elements star e
contains
with a bit of luck and persistence you
might have been able to identify the
element
oxygen indicated here in pink
carbon indicated by gold
and helium indicated in blue
example f is another star that has three
elements in its spectra and it's
probably the trickiest one of all of the
examples
can you identify which three elements
are in the emission spectrum
for star f
after careful analysis if you were
patient and persistent
you should have been able to identify
the three elements in star f
these are nitrogen indicated here in
purple
helium indicated here in blue
and then hydrogen was hiding in the
background indicated here in red
we know lots about space thanks to
spectroscopy the study of emission
spectra that means that any element we
run into
we can find and study using this
technique
including hydrogen lithium nitrogen
chromium and much more using emission
spectra we have found out the
compositions of our planetary neighbors
such as jupiter
by studying the emission spectra of
jupiter's atmosphere we know it's made
mostly of
hydrogen and helium we've also
determined the elements in much more
distant neighbors such as the orion
nebula pictured here in
what are called narrowband wavelengths
in this image
the orange core is hydrogen the bluish
cloud is oxygen
and the red area surrounding that is
ionized sulfur
moving out still farther we can even
make interesting conclusions about the
compositions of other galaxies
such as the andromeda galaxy thanks to
spectroscopy the study of emission
spectra
we know that these dark bands are lanes
of dust
mostly carbon while these brighter fuzzy
areas
are rich in lighter elements such as
hydrogen gas
we've even used spectroscopy to estimate
the composition of the universe as a
whole
these thousand dots represent all the
atoms in the universe
of these most of them are hydrogen atoms
a significant chunk of them are helium
this little bit
is oxygen and the remaining fraction of
a percent
is all other elements combined
from this we know that nearly the entire
universe is made of hydrogen
and helium let's review the goal of this
video to make sure that you
met the goal after watching this video
you should be able to
use spectroscopy to determine the
elements that make up a star
if you can't do that go back and watch
the parts of the video that you didn't
understand
until next time remember you can learn
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