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Black-Body Radiation - Las Cumbres Observatory

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15 views4 pages

Black-Body Radiation - Las Cumbres Observatory

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forTune
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Black-body Radiation

All objects emit electromagnetic radiation


<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_radiation>
according to their temperature. Colder objects emit waves with
very low frequency (such as radio
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_waves> or
microwaves <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave> 1. What is
), while hot objects emit visible light Light?
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visible_light> or even 2. Light as a
ultraviolet <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet>
Wave
and higher frequencies.
3. Light as a
Particle
Blackbody radiation
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-body_radiation> is 4. The Speed
a term used to describe the relationship between an object's of Light
temperature, and the wavelength of electromagnetic radiation it
5. Black-body
emits. A black body is an idealized object that absorbs all
electromagnetic radiation it comes in contact with. It then emits Radiation
thermal radiation in a continuous spectrum according to its 6. Redshift
temperature.
:
Simplified animation showing the different blackbody curves for
red stars, yellow stars, and blue stars. Credit: Alice Hopkinson,
LCO

Stars behave approximately like blackbodies, and this concept


explains why there are different colors of stars. Red stars are
cooler, and they emit the most radiation in the red wavelengths. A
hotter star like our sun emits the most radiation in the
yellow/green part of the spectrum.
:
We don't see any stars as green because stars with peak
wavelengths in the green also emit lots of radiation in the red and
blue part of the spectrum. Our eyes combine all of these colors
and we see white in this case. Even hotter stars and other objects
emit the most radiation in the blue, ultraviolet or even x-ray and
gamma ray part of the spectrum. Objects like these appear blue to
our eyes. Much cooler objects like planets and humans emit the
most radiation in the infrared. Even cooler objects emit
microwaves and radio waves.

The animation above shows blackbody curves for a red star, a


yellow Sun-like star and a blue star. A star like our Sun produces
the most energy in the yellow/green part of the visible spectrum.
It also produces ultraviolet and infrared, though in smaller
amounts than the visible region. A hotter blue star emits more
elecromagnetic radiation in the Ultraviolet part of the spectrum.
A cooler object like a brown dwarf emits most of its radiation in
the infrared.

This interactive animation


<https://phet.colorado.edu/sims/html/blackbody-
spectrum/latest/blackbody-spectrum_en.html> shows a
more detailed look at the relationship between the temperature,
peak wavelength and intensity of light from a black body.

The video below explains more about how a star's color is related
to its temperature, and why we don't see green stars:

Why Aren't There Any Green Stars?

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://www.facebook.com/lascumbresobservatory/>
<https://www.youtube.com/user/lcogt>
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<https://github.com/lcogt/>
Copyright © Las Cumbres Observatory. All rights reserved.

Why aren't there any green stars? Credit: NASA


:
:

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