Astrophysics Spectroscopy Video Worksheet

1. What is spectroscopy? Spectroscopy is when the colours mixed in a beam of light are separated and analyzed 2. What five things can spectroscopy tell us about a star without us having to go there? How hot a star is, how big it is, what mass it is, what chemical composition it has and how far away it is from earth

3. What are the two components of an atom? The nucleus, which is composted of protons and nucleons and electrons 4. What determines whether an atom belongs to a specific element? The number of protons in the nucleus of the atom determines what chemical element it is 5. What do we call the specific distances an electron can occupy? Permitted orbits

6. What determines the arrangement of these orbits? The number of protons in the nucleus 7. 8. 9. Who discovered the orbital model of the atom? Niels Bohr What are permitted orbits also referred to as? Energy levels What do scientists call an electrons first or rest energy level? Ground state

10. How does an electron move between energy levels? The atom must absorb energy either through collisions with other atoms or by absorbing the energy of a photon of light 11. 12. What is an atom that has absorbed energy in this way? Excited atom What is necessary for a photon so that an electron that absorbs its energy can move to a different energy level? It has to have exactly the right amount of energy

13. What does an electron do immediately after it has moved to a higher energy state? It turns back around and goes back to its Ground state 14. Who first identified three different kinds of spectra as he burnt various chemicals? Gustav Kirchhoff 15. What were the three different kinds of spectra? Continuous spectra, Emission spectra and absorption spectra 16. How does emission spectroscopy work? Absorbtion of radiation by electrons in a low pressure gas which re emits that radiation at different wavelengths an emission spectrum is observed as bright lines in the spectrum these are caused by the electrons emitting photons at specific wavelengths as they move towards the ground state from higher energy levels 17. What is a very simple everyday example of emission? Neon signs

18. How do astronomers determine the chemical composition of stars? Astronomers take the known emission spectra seen in the labatory and compare them to the ones they see astronomically to determine the composition of the source 19. How are continuous spectra produced? Continuous spectra are produced by an object that gives off light at all wavelengths 20. What makes an object brighter and emit higher energy photons? The hotter the object is 21. How do these objects emit a continuous spectrum? Each atom wants to give off light at its own specific energies but the energy levels are blurred. A solid liquid or dense gas excited to emit light will radiate at all wavelengths in this way and thus produce a continuous spectrum 22. What indicates the temperature of an object? The peak (or brightest colour) of the spectrum indicated the temperature of the object 23. How does absorption spectroscopy work? Occurs when a cold gas is between an observer and a source of continuous light the gas absorbs the light that has the correct energies to boost its electrons to its various energy levels all other light passes through, by the time the light gets to the observer those energies absorbed by the cold gas have been removed and appear as gaps in the spectrum. Instead of bright emition lines at specific energies absorption spectra show dark lines where energy is being absorbed by the atoms 24. Which part of a star produces a continuous spectrum? The light from the hot dense gas inside the star will produce a continuous spectrum 25. Which part of a star produces an absorption spectrum? The cooler gas above the hot dense gas inside the star absorb specific wavelengths of that light, which appear as gaps in the underlying continuous spectrum 26. What is temperature? Temperature is a measurement of the speed of atoms simply put the faster the atoms move in a material the hotter it is 27. What temperature scale do astronomers use? The kelvin temperature scale

28. What are the energy levels of hydrogen in the visible spectrum called? Balmer series 29. What are two ways of determining the temperature of stars? Photo metrically where the colours of the stars are indicative of the temperatures (blue star is hot, red star is much cooler). Spectroscopically which is much more precise and gives more information (where the temperature is related to energy, the temperature of the gas effects the spectrum) 30. What are the strongest absorption lines of stars of about 10,000 K? The strongest absorbtion lines of stars of about 10,000k are the balmer lines of hydrogen

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In the first classification of stars, what was used to classify them? The colour of the What did Cecelia Payne Gapoischkin discover was the cause of the many different absorption line patterns? Stars varying widely in surface temperature caused the different patterns

33. What do the spectral classes O B A F G K M represent? Classification of the absorption line patterns of stars going from O the hottest stars to M the coolest stars 34. Into how many divisions are each spectral class now divided? 10 subclasses of the 7 spectral classes 35. What can spectroscopy tell us about the motion of stars? Not only if the star is moving towards or away from the observer but if it is spinning, expanding or orbiting another object 36. How does the Doppler Effect explain how an ambulance sounds as it passes by you? The first thing you hear is a high-pitched noise and as it passes by you hear lower pitch sounds. As it comes towards you the sound waves are compressed and as it goes away the sound fronts are stretched out corresponding to a longer wavelength and a lower pitch

37. How can you tell a star is moving away from us? If something is moving away from you the shifts are longer in wavelength (red shifts). The wavelengths become longer if the body moves away from the observer and become shorter if the body comes towards the observer 38. How do we know something is spinning? The absorption line of the spectrum will be smeared out 39. How do we detect binary stars? Two hydrogen lines on the spectrum will move back and forth from that one can deduce that it isnt a single object but it is in fact two objects a spectroscopic binary 40. How are planets in other star systems detected? The gravitation tugs that planets have on there stars would be reveled on the stars spectra in the form of Doppler shifts