Tuesday, June 26, 2007

A sunny day


Sunday's Astro picture of the day was the solar spectrum -- who doesn't love the sun?

Image courtesy N. Sharp of KPNO (larger image and credit here). It's a high--resolution spectrum that's been folded many times to fit in a rectangular space. Those dark bands are absorption lines, caused by metals in the sun's atmosphere.

A cheap prism, or a piece of diffraction grating plastic, is just enough to resolve the most prominent Frauenhofer lines for yourself. Girl Scouts think that's really cool. Undergrads think it's utterly boring.

[That the image resembles a gay-pride rainbow sticker, and was posted on APOD 4 days before Stonewall Day, appears to be a coincidence.]

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Wouldn't that make a great bumper sticker? Or laptop sticker, or whatever... Somebody should get cafepress to print some!

Anonymous said...

yeah - it never occurred to me before, but someone needs to start an entire "gay astronomers" organization, just so they can claim that as the official logo.

barbara said...

Total and completely OT: I tagged you. Hope you don't mind.

Anonymous said...

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