In the early years of the nineteenth century, Joseph von Fraunhofer used a diffraction grating, instead of a prism, to separate light into more distinguishable rays.

In 1925, Cecilia Payne was the first scientist to realize that the composition of stars was not the same as in the Earth. To do this, she continued the work of Annie Jump Cannon, who had scrutinized more than 100,000 stellar spectra found in the Harvard archives, identifying patterns of groups of spectra, also called stars of the same spectral type.

In this activity, you will work on teams, you can say if you want to work:

• As Joseph,  and identify the emission lines of certain gases when heating a lamp.
• As Annie, and identify what is the spectral type for a series of stars, such as the Sun.
• As Cecilia Payne, and identify the ionized elements present in the spectrum of the Sun.

RECOMMENDED AGES: 15-18 years old

LOMLOE COMPETENCIES:

• STEAM Competition
• Competence in linguistic communication
• Competence of learning to learn
• Citizenship competence

DIDACTIC OBJECTIVES:

• Understanding the spectral types of stars
• Use spectroscopes to observe emissions of different elements
• Relate the observed spectrum to the composition of a star

MATERIALS:

• Gas lamps
• Computer with Spectral Lines Database
• collimator
• Classification of stars according to their spectral type

INCLUSION:

• Activity suitable for students with ASD through step-by-step instructions, and possible tactile adaptation of the material.