Monday, February 21, 2005

Terrestrial oxygen

Terrestrial oxygen as seen in the sun's spectrum, originally taken March 17, 2003.



It's terrestrial only in the sense of being non-astronomical; to all but astronomers it would be called "atmospheric".

5 comments:

  1. Oooh, pretty. I am constantly in awe of spectra. I don't know what I consider Fraunhofer's biggest contribution to science -- the discovery of spectral lines, the equitorial telescope mount (plus siderial clock drive!), the heliometer, or his significant improvements to achromatic optics.

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  2. Spectral lines, achromatic optics, heliometer, equitorial mount.

    If by "science," you mean a set of fields, of which astronomy is a proper subset.

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  3. Are you saying spectral lines aren't physics? Chemistry? Sure, he didn't contribute greatly to biology but one man can only do so much, no? I would point out that optics isn't really limited to astronomy either.

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  4. I am informed by Colin that I misread is post. So nevermind.

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  5. I realize that Steven't misinterpretation was not unreasonable. What I meant was that that is the order in which I would rate the scientific value of each contribution. The order indicates my estimation of the breadth of each contribution's influence.

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