Home › NY Regents Earth and Space Sciences › Science › Radiation and Spectra › Dark lines cross the spectrum of the Sun. Where …
Dark lines cross the spectrum of the Sun. Where do the atoms that remove those colors sit?
AIn the core of the Sun itself
BIn a cool gas around the Sun
CIn the empty space near Earth
DIn the lenses of the telescope
Answer & Solution
Correct answer: B. In a cool gas around the Sun
1. Absorption lines need a cooler, thinner gas sitting in front of a continuous source.
2. The space between us and the Sun is nearly empty, so it cannot do the absorbing.
3. The absorbing atoms must lie in a thin, cooler atmosphere around the Sun itself.
4. This outer layer is not very different from the rest of the Sun, just thinner and cooler.
5. That is why its composition can stand in for the composition of the whole Sun.
6. The core is far too hot and is buried under the layers that make the continuous spectrum.
7. Telescope lenses are the same for every star, so they could not print solar lines.
_Source: OpenStax Astronomy (CC BY 4.0), Ch 4 "Earth, Moon, and Sky" and Ch 5 "Radiation and Spectra", section 5.3 Spectroscopy in Astronomy_
Related questions
Excited atoms give back the very light they absorbed, yet dark absorption lines still survAn oxygen atom can be ionized up to eight times while a hydrogen atom can be ionized only A hydrogen line normally at 500 nanometers is measured at 500.1 nanometers in a star's speTwo stars are the same size and the same distance away, but star B is three times as hot aWien's law uses a constant of 3 million nanometer kelvins. A star radiates most strongly aA star is moved to ten times its present distance from us. How much fainter does it look?What name is given to a single self-contained packet of electromagnetic energy?What decides which element an atom belongs to?