What is a Fraunhofer Line?

KOMPAS.com – German physicist Joseph von Fraunhofer (1787–1826), invented an instrument called a spectroscope which contained a diffraction grating.

When Fraunhofer used this tool to analyze light from the Sun, he found dark lines on a continuous spectrum. These lines are known as Fraunhofer line.

Diagram showing Fraunhofer lines – dark lines on a continuous spectrum.

Reported from BBC, The sun and other stars produce all wavelengths of light.

As the light passes through the cooler outer atmosphere, the gas atoms absorb certain wavelengths of light, producing a spectrum of absorption lines that humans can see from Earth.

Read also: Why is the sun setting? This is the explanation according to science

Scientists in the 19th century were able to compare these dark lines to the emission line spectra of known elements and identify what elements were present in the cooler atmosphere.

Today, using much more sophisticated technology, astronomers have discovered tens of thousands of Fraunhofer lines.

What happens to light before it reaches Earth?

When looking at an image of the Sun, the visible surface is called the photosphere.

The photosphere is the region hundreds of kilometers thick, where the Sun changes from opaque to transparent.

The photosphere is not actually the outermost surface. The sun extends thousands of kilometers beyond the photosphere, but is usually not visible from Earth.

Read also: Analemma, the Phenomenon of the Sun in the Shape of the Number 8

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