Veröffentlicht am

The Suns Spectrum with its Missing Colors

It is still not known why the Sun’s light is missing some colors. Here are all the visible colors of the Sun, produced by passing the Sun’s light through a prism-like device. The spectrum was created at the McMath-Pierce Solar Observatory and shows, first off, that although our white-appearing Sun emits light of nearly every color, it does indeed appear brightest in yellow-green light. The dark patches in the above spectrum arise from gas at or above the Sun’s surface absorbing sunlight emitted below. Since different types of gas absorb different colors of light, it is possible to determine what gasses compose the Sun. Helium, for example, was first discovered in 1870 on a solar spectrum and only later found here on Earth. Today, the majority of spectral absorption lines have been identified – but not all. via NASA https://ift.tt/2OQxUWg

Veröffentlicht am

Highlights of the North Autumn Sky

What can you see in the night sky this season? The featured graphic gives a few highlights for Earth’s northern hemisphere. Viewed as a clock face centered at the bottom, early (northern) autumn sky events fan out toward the left, while late autumn events are projected toward the right. Objects relatively close to Earth are illustrated, in general, as nearer to the cartoon figure with the telescope at the bottom center — although almost everything pictured can be seen without a telescope. As happens during any season, constellations appear the same year to year, and, as usual, the Leonids meteor shower will peak in mid-November. Also as usual, the International Space Station (ISS) can be seen, at times, as a bright spot drifting across the sky after sunset. Planets visible after sunset this autumn include Jupiter and Mars, and during late autumn, Saturn. via NASA https://ift.tt/2QUpFK9