Notice that the Sun’s spectrum appearsbrightest (or most intense) in the yellow-green region. This facttells us __________. Suppose we want to know what the Sun is madeof. What should we do? Any spectrum can be displayed either inphotographic form as shown to the left or as a graph. Which of thefollowing graphs could represent a portion of the Sun’svisible light spectrum? Pass a narrow beam of sunlight through aprism. Take a photograph of the Sun and then useimage-processing software to change the Sun's shape into a long,thin strip. Photograph the Sun through a powerfultelescope. Compare the relative amounts of light that theSun emits as infrared, visible light, and ultraviolet light
Explanation / Answer
A-1) a prism would provide a continuous spectrum because theprism disperses different wavelengths at different angles B-2) the longest wavelengths (reds) have the lowestfrequency C-4) cooler gases in the outer parts of the sun absorb emittedwavelengths and appear black D-1) the apparent color of the sun is due to greatestintensity of the emitted wavelengths E-2) the wavelengths of the emitting wavelengths are thesame on the sun and in the laboratory F-2) for a small part of the spectrum the black linescorrespond the sharp downward spikes in the curve shown