Steven Vazquez
Prof. Szabo
Astro 106
04/26/2017
Debate of view points
Russell:
Henry Norris Russell was born in October 25, 1877 and died February 18, 1957. He dedicated Sixty years at Princeton University, as a student and professor. Russell, like many in this time, believed that stars were composed of the same identical elements that are present on Earth. The shared belief of physicists at the time was, “what we know here, must be true out there.” This changed in the 19th century when the use of spectrography arose. Spectrography was first developed by scientists when they realized that if they could direct a beam of light through a medium like a gas and separate it into a spectrum, that certain wavelengths of color would be missing from the spectra. When they expanded on it they could tell which elements absorbed which wavelengths. Astronomers could use this concept to detect the chemical elements of stars through the medium of space between the Earth and the star. Frank Wigglesworth Clarke’s The Relative Abundance of the Chemical Elements supported the assumption that Earth and stellar atmospheres were composed of the same things. Frank Wigglesworth Clarke, took samples of minerals from varying parts of Earth’s crust. Many of the lines of the solar atmosphere spectrum match identical elements found on Earth. It is from those observations that many astronomers believed that since the same elements are shared with Earth, that they must be made up of the same amounts and proportions of elements. In the 1920’s Russell began a series of investigations of the absorption line spectrum of the Sun that resulted in a seemingly reliable determination of the abundance of various chemical elements in the solar atmosphere. He and fellow physicist, Henry Rowland, believed that like Earth there was an abundance of the same heavy elements in the Sun’s atmosphere. Henry Russell’s claims were supported using absorption lines in the Solar Spectra; however, later it was discovered that the spectra of all known stars at the time consistently formed …show more content…
She was a British-born American Astronomer who viewed the spectra of the stellar and solar atmospheres differently than the accepted wisdom of the time. Payne discovered that the stars were composed of mainly Hydrogen and Helium and that they could be classified according to their temperatures. She explained why there were 7 consistently formed absorption patterns from the known stars at the time. She hypothesized that they weren’t created by different combinations of elements but by different temperature ranges. Payne achieved these results by relating spectral classes of the stars to their temperatures using Indian physicist Meghnad Saha’s Ionization Theory. This theory states that in matter atoms normally collide, when the temperature is high the atoms in matter collide more frequently and quickly, so much that eventually an electron is stripped from it’s atom and causes it to become polarized. Since the electron is taken away the atom has a different chemical signature, resulting in these ions absorbing different wavelengths than their parent atoms do. Cecilia Payne hypothesized that since higher temperature means more ionization that it could explain the different absorption patterns astronomers were finding. She went on to figure out which ions created the different absorption patterns in spectra and at which temperature they could each exist at. Payne studied many elements and was basically lost
Prof. Szabo
Astro 106
04/26/2017
Debate of view points
Russell:
Henry Norris Russell was born in October 25, 1877 and died February 18, 1957. He dedicated Sixty years at Princeton University, as a student and professor. Russell, like many in this time, believed that stars were composed of the same identical elements that are present on Earth. The shared belief of physicists at the time was, “what we know here, must be true out there.” This changed in the 19th century when the use of spectrography arose. Spectrography was first developed by scientists when they realized that if they could direct a beam of light through a medium like a gas and separate it into a spectrum, that certain wavelengths of color would be missing from the spectra. When they expanded on it they could tell which elements absorbed which wavelengths. Astronomers could use this concept to detect the chemical elements of stars through the medium of space between the Earth and the star. Frank Wigglesworth Clarke’s The Relative Abundance of the Chemical Elements supported the assumption that Earth and stellar atmospheres were composed of the same things. Frank Wigglesworth Clarke, took samples of minerals from varying parts of Earth’s crust. Many of the lines of the solar atmosphere spectrum match identical elements found on Earth. It is from those observations that many astronomers believed that since the same elements are shared with Earth, that they must be made up of the same amounts and proportions of elements. In the 1920’s Russell began a series of investigations of the absorption line spectrum of the Sun that resulted in a seemingly reliable determination of the abundance of various chemical elements in the solar atmosphere. He and fellow physicist, Henry Rowland, believed that like Earth there was an abundance of the same heavy elements in the Sun’s atmosphere. Henry Russell’s claims were supported using absorption lines in the Solar Spectra; however, later it was discovered that the spectra of all known stars at the time consistently formed …show more content…
She was a British-born American Astronomer who viewed the spectra of the stellar and solar atmospheres differently than the accepted wisdom of the time. Payne discovered that the stars were composed of mainly Hydrogen and Helium and that they could be classified according to their temperatures. She explained why there were 7 consistently formed absorption patterns from the known stars at the time. She hypothesized that they weren’t created by different combinations of elements but by different temperature ranges. Payne achieved these results by relating spectral classes of the stars to their temperatures using Indian physicist Meghnad Saha’s Ionization Theory. This theory states that in matter atoms normally collide, when the temperature is high the atoms in matter collide more frequently and quickly, so much that eventually an electron is stripped from it’s atom and causes it to become polarized. Since the electron is taken away the atom has a different chemical signature, resulting in these ions absorbing different wavelengths than their parent atoms do. Cecilia Payne hypothesized that since higher temperature means more ionization that it could explain the different absorption patterns astronomers were finding. She went on to figure out which ions created the different absorption patterns in spectra and at which temperature they could each exist at. Payne studied many elements and was basically lost