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Anyone have a good layman's version of astrobiology-level spectral analysis? I am consistently amazed by the specificity of conclusions drawn from light in spac
by contingencies 5y ago
Anyone have a good layman's version of astrobiology-level spectral analysis? I am consistently amazed by the specificity of conclusions drawn from light in space. Don't want a maths or physics degree just yet, but keen to understand the general structure of the current approaches.
- gus_massa 5y agoI'm not sure of the details, but it's probably similar to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_spectroscopy#Theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_spectroscopy#Theory You can make the spectrum of the light, and look for dark lines, so you calculate how much light of each color was absorbed, and get a graph like the one in Wikipedia. Each molecule has a different graph, https://www.google.com/search?q=infrared+spectrum&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=infrared+spectrum&tbm=isch so you can try to math the graph form the light in the telescope with the graph of the known substances or a mix of them.
- contingencies 5y agoCheers that's perfect.