Transcription of UNIT 2 THE ELECTROMAGNETIC SPECTRUM - NASA
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UNIT 2 THE ELECTROMAGNETIC SPECTRUM - NASA
Like expanding ripples in a pond after a pebblehas been tossed in, ELECTROMAGNETIC radiationtravels across space in the form of waves. Thesewaves travel at the speed of light 300,000 kilo-meters per second. Their wavelengths, the dis-tance from wave crest to wave crest, vary fromthousands of kilometers across (in the case ofthe longest radio waves) to fractions of ananometer, in the cases of the smallest x-raysand gamma rays. ELECTROMAGNETIC radiation has properties of bothwaves and particles. What we detect depends on themethod we use to study it. The beautiful colors thatappear in a soap film or in the dispersion of lightfrom a diamond are best described as waves. Thelight that strikes a solar cell to produce an electriccurrent is best described as a particle. Whendescribed as particles, individual packets of electro-magnetic energy are called photons. The amount ofenergy a photon of light contains depends upon itswavelength.
intensely in the x-ray and gamma ray regions. There are two main techniques for analyzing starlight. One is called spectroscopy and the other photometry. Spectroscopy spreads out the different wavelengths of light into a spectrum for study. Photometry measures the quantity of light in specific wavelengths or by combining all Space-Based Astronomy
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