Roger Freedman • Robert Geller • William Kaufmann III

Universe
Tenth Edition

Chapter 5
The Nature of Light
Prepared by Dr Nelly Mouawad
 Part I

Experiencing Light
Properties of Light
The Electromagnetic Spectrum

2
 Why is Light Important?
• Allows for photosynthesis
• Allows us to tell time
• Allows us to determine the composition of stars
• Lets us see stuff (otherwise we bump into them?)
• Allows us to determine distance and motion relative to us
• Keeps us warm (gives us energy)
• Allows us to discover dark matter (bends around)
• It travels at the speed limit

3
 Light…

• …carries energy (transfers it to

objects it strikes)

• …provides information about

objects in our Universe…even
when the objects are too far
away for us to visit them
personally
• Composition
• Temperature
• Motion relative to us

4
 How Does Light Interact with Matter?
Light is most important and informative
in terms of its interaction with matter

1. Emission – light is radiated (given off) from matter

2. Absorption – energy from light is taken in by matter

3. Transmission – light passes through matter

4. Reflection / Scattering – light bounces off matter

5
EMISSION - CREATING LIGHT
REFLECTION - REDIRECTING
LIGHT
SCATTERING- LIKE REFLECTION
REDIRECTING LIGHT AT DIFFERENT
ANGLES
Transmission – letting light through

Total or Partial
ABSORPTION - BLOCKING
OUTTotal
LIGHT or Partial
MOSTLY A COMBINATION OF ALL
3 TAKES PLACE
WHY DOES THE APPLE LOOK
RED?

absorption

reflection
HOW ABOUT BLACK AND
WHITE?

For all other colors

Total absorption it is a combination
Total reflection
of both
 Clicker 17.01
Why does Neptune appear to be
blue?

[Link] emits all colors of the visible

spectrum except blue

[Link] emits only blue light

[Link] emits all colors of the visible

spectrum, but all colors except blue are
scattered in Earth’s atmosphere before
reaching our telescopes

[Link] absorbs blue light emitted by

the Sun

[Link] reflects blue light emitted from

the Sun
14
 Why do Fire Fighters
Wear Red Suspenders?

Different light phenomena here:

The Sun emits visible light.

The suspenders absorb all colors of

the visible light except red.

The red light is scattered (reflected in

different directions) toward your
eye.

The red light is transmitted through

Like for the red Exit signs, your cornea, to the cones in your
in the presence of smoke, eye.
red suspenders are easily
seen than other colors. 15
Planets exhibit different colors: each one absorbs and
reflects different colors depending on its composition
Chapter 5 – Part I

Properties of Light

17
 What I’d Like You to Understand:
• Light behaves like both a wave and a particle

• Waves can be described by their wavelength, frequency,

and speed. These quantities are all related to each other.

• Light always travels at constant speed – the ‘speed of

light’!

• Photons of light carry energy in proportion to their frequency.

18
 How do we Describe Waves? (1)

• Waves transport energy, but the individual particles in a

wave stay put and bounce ‘up and down’ (oscillate)

• Light waves are the oscillations of electric and magnetic

fields. Light is often called an electromagnetic wave.
 How do we Describe Waves? (2)
• Wavelength: The distance between adjacent peaks

• Frequency: How often (# per second) the peaks pass a

given point in space

wavelength × frequency = speed

λ × f = c (c is speed of light c = 3 × 108 m/s)

frequency is proportional to energy 20

 Clicker 17.01

Light comes in many wavelengths. What happens to the

energy of light as wavelength increases?

[Link] increases

[Link] decreases

[Link] stays the same

wavelength × frequency = speed

frequency is proportional to energy

21
 Please understand the
previous slides about light.
The next 4 slides are for fun.

22
 Huygens: Light is a Wave
Waves transfer energy, but particles
don’t propagate. They just bounce
up and down

23
 Newton: Light is a Particle

Corpuscular theory: Light is like

baseballs.

• It consists of discrete particles

• Each particle has a mass and moves

with a velocity

• Therefore, each particle has a kinetic

energy

Everyone else: “Newton is a smart

dude. He must be right.”

24
 Young: Light is a Wave

• Sent light through two slits and

looked at what came out the
other side.

If light were a wave…

If light were a particle… 25
 Einstein: Light is a Wave and a Particle

• People had noticed that the influence of light on metals was

more pronounced for light with high frequencies (how often
the waves arrive) as opposed to high amplitude (the
intensity of the wave).

• They searched for the reasons metals were so weird.

• Einstein realized the metals behaved fine. It was light that

was weird.

• Light comes in individual massless particle-like bursts called

photons…that have wave-like wavelength and frequency.

• Each photon carries energy.

26
 The Electromagnetic Spectrum

62
27
 Visible Light Comes in Colors

• Newton ‘discovered’ this (he

really was a smart dude, even if I
made fun of him earlier)

• White light is the presence of ‘all

colors’, but can be split apart.

• Red light corresponds to long

wavelengths

• Blue light corresponds to short

wavelengths
Pink Floyd partially redeemed?
28
 Light is electromagnetic radiation and is
characterized by its wavelength (or frequency)

A Prism and a Spectrum

Mixing all colors of light gives the white ‘color’

All Colors

See the Newton Disk here:

[Link]
Sun – like most stars emits in ‘all’
colors
There’s More than Just Visible Light

32
 Part II

The Electromagnetic Spectrum (Continued)

Matter
Spectra
Doppler Shift
33
 The Electromagnetic Spectrum
(Continued)

5
34
There’s More than Just Visible Light

35
 Question
Compared to ultraviolet light, infrared light has ______
speed and _____ energy.

[Link]; higher
[Link]; higher
[Link]; higher
[Link]; lower
[Link]; lower

36
Sun – If we spread out the sun light through a prism,
we see the rainbow colors with some missing parts.
 To understand how the suns
spectrum, let’s start by looking at
the microscopic structure of matter.

38
 Atoms and Molecules
• All ordinary matter is composed of atoms

• Atoms are tiny – more in a drop of water than stars in the Universe

• Atoms can combine to form molecules (H2, N2, H2O, CH4) and
compounds (H2O, CH4)

39
 Atomic Structure
• All atoms have a nucleus. Neutrons and protons reside in the nucleus.

• # of protons = atomic number (sets the element name we use)

• (# of protons) + (# of neutrons) = atomic mass number

40
 Atomic Charge

• Electrons are tiny (~1000 times

smaller than protons) particles that
whiz around the nucleus.

• Electrons are negatively charged.

Protons are positively charged.

• In a neutral atom, the total number of

protons and electrons are equal.

• Ions are atoms with an imbalance in

charge (usually one or more missing
electrons).

41
 Atomic Energy Levels
• Electrons in an atom or molecule can
only possess specific amounts of
energy. They are quantized.

• Electrons with minimum energy are in

the ground state.

• If they gain specific amounts of

energy they move to an excited state.

• If they gain too much energy they

escape, ionizing the atom.

• Very important: Different atoms and

molecules have different energy
levels. By looking at the energy of
light received from a substance, we
can identify the substance!
42
 Clicker 19.04
Which of the emission lines shown in the cartoon
depicts an electron emitting energy as it moves to the
ground state?

B C E
A

43
 Spectra

34
44
 What is a Spectrum?
If we graphed the amount (intensity, or total energy) of light vs.
wavelength we would obtain a spectrum (plural is spectra).

45
There are 3 types of spectra

or a combination of the three

46
1 - Continuous Spectra: Thermal Radiation

47
color vs temperature in space
Temperature & Thermal Radiation: Heat (Continuous
radiation or Blackbody Radiation)
• Each graph is showing how much light
is emitted at each wavelength for
objects with different temperatures.
BlackBody
• Example: a “cool” star with T = 3000 K

• Example: a “sun-like” star with T = 6000 K

• Example: a hot star with T = 12000 K

Stars emit blackbody radiation

- All these stars are emitting at ALL
wavelengths.

The difference from a star to a star is:

1- The location of their “peaks”

2 - Hotter stars emit more light (more

energy)
Temperature & Thermal Radiation : Heat (Continuous
radiation or Blackbody Radiation)
Although the peak is in the “invisible” range,

these stars still emit light in the visible range

BlackBody spectrum
We can still see them with the
naked eye

The higher an object’s

temperature, the more intensely the
object emits electromagnetic radiation
& the shorter the wavelengths at
which it emits most strongly
 Continuous Spectra: Thermal Radiation
Each of these curves shows the intensity of light at every wavelength that
is emitted by a dense object at a particular temperature.
The rainbow-colored band shows the range of visible wavelengths.
The vertical scale has been compressed so that all three curves can be
seen;
the peak intensity for the 15,000-K curve is more than 1000 times greater
than the peak intensity for the 3000-K curve.
It is not surprising that the range of visible wavelengths includes the peak
of the Sun’s spectrum; the human eye evolved to take advantage of the
most plentiful light available.

51
Example of Radiation from Heated dense Objects –
a continuous spectrum

What’s the simplest way to produce electromagnetic waves?

Heat an object
Example Radiation from Heated Objects – continuous
spectra
First, the dominant color
is RED

Then, temperature rises

and the color changes
to light orange

Then, it turns Yellow

Heat it more &

it will turn blue-white.

Colors of stars tell us

about their temperatures
Hottest stars are blue
 Continuous Spectra: Thermal Radiation
• Photons emitted from dense (not gaseous) objects have a continuous
range of energies (because their wavelengths are randomized)

• The resulting thermal radiation (or blackbody radiation) spectrum has

its peak intensity at higher energies for hotter objects

• The resulting spectrum is more intense at every wavelength for hotter

objects

• We can use the spectrum to measure an object’s temperature!

• Stars can peak over a wide range of wavelengths. People and planets
peak in the infrared.

54
 Continuous Spectra: Thermal Radiation
Infrared - emitted visible - reflected

Person seen
in the infrared:
emitted radiation.

55
The star cluster NGC 3293 in the constellation Carina (the
Ship’s Keel) For Practice at Home.
What can you say about
the surface temperatures
of most of the bright stars
in this cluster? In what part
of the electromagnetic
spectrum do these stars
emit most intensely? Are
your eyes sensitive to this
type of radiation? If not,
how is it possible to see
these stars at all? There is
at least one bright star in
this cluster with a distinctly
different color from the
others; what can you
conclude about its surface
temperature?
Kirchhoff's Laws
Three important laws about spectra:
Law 1: A hot body, such as a perfect blackbody, gives off a
continuous spectrum (a complete rainbow of colors without any
spectral lines).
Law 2: A hot, transparent gas produces emission line spectrum
(bright spectral lines)
Law 3: A cool gas in front of a hot source will absorb light from
the source, producing an absorption line spectrum
Each chemical element produces its
own unique set of spectral lines

The Kirchhoff-Bunsen Experiment

Spectral Lines
 Spectral Emissions – examples.
Each type of atom sodium, neon, and all the
others emits a characteristic spectrum of colors,
unique to that element.

The emissions are easily separated by wavelength

using or a prism (or a diffraction grating)

Observation of an unfamiliar spectral line pattern

in light from the Sun’s atmosphere led to the
Yellow glow of sodium
discovery of helium - an element identified on the
Sodium vapor lights
Sun before it was found on Earth.

mercury vapor light

PHY 305
 2 - Emission Spectra
• Electrons in an excited state typically return to the ground state quickly

• The electron loses energy, which can be emitted as light

• The light has specific energy, corresponding to the energy level transition

• Specific energy corresponds to a specific wavelength & frequency

• The wavelengths we observe can tell us a distant object’s composition

61
 3 - Absorption Spectra
• Just as atoms emit light at specific energies corresponding to energy
level transitions, they also absorb light at specific wavelengths

• We can use ‘missing’ or ‘dim’ wavelengths to tell us what a material

between us and a light source is made of. For example, our atmosphere.

That’s how we discover water and other molecules in exoplanets 62

When a CCD is placed at the focus of a spectrograph, it records the rainbow-colored
spectrum. A computer program can be used to convert the recorded data into a graph
of intensity versus wavelength. (a) Absorption lines appear as dips on such a graph.
(b) emission lines appear as peaks. The dark absorption lines and bright emission
lines are the Balmer lines of hydrogen (see Section 5-8 in the book).
Analyzing the Composition of a Distant
Nebula
The red light emitted by
the nebula has a
wavelength of 656 nm,
characteristic of an
emission line from
hydrogen gas. Hot stars
within the nebula emit
high energy, ultra violet
photons, which ionize
hydrogen (removing the
electron). When the
electron returns to the
atom, it jumps towards
the center and gives off
emission lines.

The glowing gas cloud in this Hubble Space

Telescope image lies 210,000 light-years away
in the constellation Tucana (the Toucan)
Red Color: Nitrogen
Green Color: Oxygen

Blue Color: Helium

Light has
characteristic
fingerprints
That reveal the
chemical
composition of
the universe
Aurora Borealis on Earth

66
What are northern lights or Auroras?
The bright dancing lights of the aurora
are actually collisions between
electrically charged particles from the
sun that enter the earth's atmosphere.
The lights are seen above the magnetic
poles of the northern and southern
hemispheres. They are known as
'Aurora borealis' in the north and 'Aurora
australis' in the south.. Auroral displays
appear in many colours although pale
green and pink are the most common.
Shades of red, yellow, green, blue, and
violet have been reported. The lights
appear in many forms from patches or
scattered clouds of light to streamers,
arcs, rippling curtains or shooting rays
that light up the sky with an eerie glow.

Watch [Link]
WHAT CAUSES THE NORTHERN or SOUTHERN LIGHTS?

The aurora is caused by charged particles in the solar wind colliding

with atmospheric atoms and ions. The collisions cause the electrons of
the atmospheric atoms to become excited. As the electrons return to
their original energy levels, these atoms emit visible light of distinct
wavelengths, to create the colors of the display we see.
The color of the aurora depends on the wavelength of the light emitted.
This is determined by the specific atmospheric gas and its electrical
state, and the energy of the particle that hits the atmospheric gas. The
atmosphere consists mainly of nitrogen and oxygen, which emit the
characteristic colors of their respective line spectra. Atomic oxygen is
responsible for the two main colors of green (wavelength of 557.7 nm)
and red (630.0 nm). Nitrogen causes blue and deep red hues.

68
 Auroras Happen on other planets
Jupiter Saturn

69
 Putting it All Together
Spectrum obtained from measuring light from Mars

70
 Putting it All Together
Spectrum obtained from measuring light from Mars
1. Reflected visible sunlight
2. Emitted infrared light
4. Emission lines 3. Absorption lines

1: More red light reflected than blue because Mars absorbs blue light
2: Mars emits at infrared wavelengths because of its low temperature
3: Carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere absorbs some light
4: Very hot gases high in the Martian atmosphere emit light
71
Summary

72
The Doppler Effect – or Doppler shift

The Doppler effect is defined as the change in the measured

wavelength/frequency of light waves, water waves or sound
waves as the emitting source and the observer move relative to
each other.

For example, it is used to measure the speed of cars by the

police radars

It can be used to measure the speed of blood in vessels

In astronomy, it is used to measure how fast objects are

moving relative to us.
Why causes the Doppler shift?
 Doppler Effect
The wavelength of a spectral line is affected by the
relative motion between the source and the observer

The Doppler Effect

 Light Emitted from Moving Objects
• Imagine an sound wave being emitted from a stationary object

• If the object moves towards you, you will measure the crests as
compressed
⇒ the wavelength decreases & the frequency increases
⇒ we call this a blue shift

• If the object moves away from you, you will measure the crests as
stretched
• => the wavelength increases, the frequency decreases (red shift)

• We can use the frequency shift of spectral lines to measure the speed
of an object toward or away from us
 Light Emitted from Moving Objects
• Imagine an sound wave being emitted
from a stationary object

• If the object moves towards you, you

will detect the crests to be compressed
⇒ the wavelength decreases & the
frequency increases
⇒ we call this a blue shift

• If the object moves away from you,

you will measure the crests as
stretched
=> the wavelength increases & the
frequency decreases
=> we call this a red shift
 Question on Doppler shift
The New Horizons spacecraft was traveling toward
Pluto, it used a large radio antenna that broadcasts at
1010 Hertz to communicate with Earth. To what
frequency should radio receivers on Earth be set if they
want to receive the messages?

[Link] than 1010 Hertz

B.1010 Hertz
[Link] than 1010 Hertz

78
 Question on Doppler shift
The New Horizons spacecraft was traveling toward
Pluto, it used a large radio antenna that broadcasts at
1010 Hertz to communicate with Earth. To what
frequency should radio receivers on Earth be set if they
want to receive the messages?

[Link] than 1010 Hertz

B.1010 Hertz
[Link] than 1010 Hertz

79
 Application to Doppler shift
We can use the frequency/wavelength shift of spectral lines
to measure the speed of an object toward or away from us
 Doppler Shift and Rotation
• A rotating object has different regions moving toward and away from
you simultaneously

• Emission lines from objects to distant to be observed as anything other

than pints are ‘broadened’ by rotation. The faster the rotation the
broader the line.

81
Light scattering
Why is the Sky Blue?
The sky appears blue because
the fine particles in the
atmosphere scatter blue light
more than other colors

The scattering of light is the

phenomenon by which a
photon of light is redirected in
different directions when
interacting with the particles
present in the medium.
Light scattering
Why is the sunset, sunrise or even a setting
moon red?
 Light scattering

If Earth had no atmosphere, how

would our sky look like?
 Skies on other planets

What can you say about Mercury,

the moon, and Mars?

Sunsets on other planets:

[Link]
 Chapter 5 Recap
You should now be familiar with:
• 4 ways light can interact with matter
• Wave and particle qualities of light
• Relation between speed, frequency, wavelength, energy of light
• The structure of matter (nucleus and electrons)
• Electron energy levels
• Emission, absorption, and continuous (thermal/blackbody) spectra
• How to determine the composition of an object
• How to determine the temperature of an object
• What information Doppler shifted light provides

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Links for Animations, questions and
movies
general link for more questions :
[Link]
• [Link]
[Link]
• [Link]
[Link]
• [Link]
[Link]
• [Link]
[Link]
• [Link]
[Link]
• [Link]
[Link]
 Links for online animations we
used In class
• [Link]
[Link]
• [Link]
html
• [Link]
[Link]
• [Link]
[Link]
• [Link]
[Link]
• [Link]
[Link]
 online videos
➤What is light from Kurzgesagt:
[Link]
afEQ
Auroras
[Link]
unrise

Sunsets on other planets:

[Link]