can someone please tell me how a spectroscope is used to study stars?

Answer 1

Actually, spectroscopes are not used in astronomical studies. The instrument is called a spectrograph. The difference is that a spectrograph makes a photograph of the expanded spectrum of light emitted by a star. The more powerful the telescope and related instruments, the more details of the spectrum, and thus more information about the relative amounts of various elements in the star.

Studies with spectrographs in astronomy go as far back as the 1890s, and developed rapidly during the early 20th century. George Ellery Hale (1870-1936), a great astronomer and popularizer of astronomy during that period, for whom the 200-inch telescope at Mt. Palomar is named, said "To understand the stars, we must study the sun." His subsequent solar studies, involving thousands of spectrographic observations, provided most of the knowledge of the nature of light and the behavior of substances in high-energy conditions that modern science possesses.

Similarly, other astronomers of the time studied the spectra of other stars and sought by comparing those to the spectrum of the sun, to determine the makeup of the stars and the variations in the makeup of different kinds of stars.

Edwin Hubble, for whom the Hubble Space Telescope is named, and numerous colleagues, mapped thousands of stars spectrographically in the 1920s and 30s, creating the first maps of the observable universe that gave information about the distribution of stars and the relationship among their brightness, apparent size, and actual distance.

It was during this time that the "red shift" was noticed. This is the tendency of the spectra of distant stars to be distorted by their motion away from us. Hubble developed the Hubble Constant, which indicates that there is a constant ratio between the distance of a star from us and the apparent speed with which the star is receding. These studies led to the understanding, now much more refined, that the universe is expanding and that all matter is scattering from an original violent event.

All of these are ways in which spectrographs are used to study the stars. These studies continue, and will go on to give us more and more knowledge of our universe from generation to generation.

Answer 2

Spectroscope is an optical instrument that is used to study the spectrum of stars. The light from the star is examined using the spectroscope and from the spectrum band obtained, the nature of the star and their compositions are found out.

Answer 3

As light passes through object's or gasses in space it changes, it also changes if stars move (Redshift) Scientist's have learnt to read and understand these changes in the spectrum. I.e Light before it passes Jupiter is analyzed with a spectroscope then again after it has passed Jupiter, scientists can then see the difference in the light spectrum readings.

So if light coming from another star has the same reading as the light that passed through Jupiter it is safe to assume there is a Jupiter class planet around that star.

This is just one example.

Answer 4

Every chemical element, when heated, emits (radiates) light of fixed frequencies. Stars are super-hot and so all elements in it emit their particular frequencies.
A spectroscope is capable of sorting out these mixed frequencies and determine exactly to which element(s) they belong.
Thus the chemical make up of a star can be determined.
Neat, eh?

Answer 5

a spectroscope will analyze the spectrum of any light source (such as a star)

careful examination of the light spectrum from a star can reveal information such as temperature of the star, constituent materials, etc

certain spectral lines indicate the presence of individual elements (they give off light at that wavelength under those conditions)

scientists can learn a lot about a star by very fine spectral analysis of the light from that star

Answer 6

Atoms absorb light in certain bands, and reemit it in certian other bands (wavelengths). Spectroscopes can see these bands and dark areas, and tell which elements are present. If they are moving away from us, or towards us, the bands will shift in wavelength, and the amount of that shift indicates the speed relative to earth. If the shift is toward violet, a shorter wavelength, they are moving towards us, if towards red, away. Most shifts are red. since the speed of light is constant, the wavelength must change.

Answer 7

A Spectroscope Is Used To

Answer 8

In a nutshell... it analyses properties of light. Every element when burned gives off light that can be sent through a prism, this gives off a unique pattern of Fraunhofer lines... little black lines in the rainbow colored spectrum. After figuring out what the element of the star is made of, these lines are analysed as to their position. If these lines are shifted (from their normal position for that element) toward the infra red side of the spectrum, that star is moving away from us... if they are shifted to the ultra violet side, that star is moving toward us.