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Did you know that the way astronomers are able to figure out the chemical components of stars is by using things called emission and absorption spectrums? This is what they look like:
The way this works is that different elements on the periodic table have different energy levels, or “shells.” That’s what those lines around the nucleus are:
When an electron gets hit with a photon, it goes into an excited state and moves up the sublevels within an energy level. Think of it like going up stairs that lead to different floors on a building! That’s what an absorption spectrum represents: it’s the photons, or essentially the light particles, that the electrons absorb.
When an electron goes down a sublevel, it releases that photon, and gives off or emits energy, which is what the emission spectrum shows. It does this at different wavelengths, and the frequencies of these wavelengths can change the color of the light. Each element has a different way of doing this, so when scientists look for the elements in stars, they look at the emission spectrum of those stars, the emission spectrum of certain elements, and see what lines up!
In the model below, you can see what that looks like in practice. By looking at at the lines on each of the elements listed below and comparing it to the observed spectrum of the star, an astronomer can pick out what elements the star has!!
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