Somewhere over the rainbow

Somewhere over the rainbow, there's a hidden story waiting to be discovered! We all have a pretty good understsnding of what s rsinbow is right? Here’s a refresher just in case you just stepped foot on earth. Rainbows are amazing optical phenomena that appear when certain weather conditions occur. They are created by the bending, reflection, and spreading of light in water droplets, resulting in a beautiful spectrum of colors in the sky. The rainbow appears in the shape of a vibrant, circular arc. When sunlight creates a rainbow, it always appears directly opposite the Sun in the sky.

Rainbows can even form full circles, but most of the time, we only see a portion of the arc above the ground that is illuminated by the droplets. This arc is centered on an imaginary line connecting the Sun and the viewer's eye. It's truly a breathtaking sight to behold!

In the early 1800s, a German physicist named Joseph von Fraunhofer noticed something strange while studying sunlight passing through a prism. He saw that part of the rainbow was missing! Fraunhofer cataloged over 600 dark and faint lines where there should have been colors, like a barcode. It was a mystery waiting to be solved!

Enter Gustav Kirchhoff and Robert Bunsen, the scientists who cracked Fraunhofer's code. Yes, the same Bunsen from the Bunsen burner! They were fascinated by how different elements glowed different colors when exposed to flame. They decided to study the light from these flames more precisely and created a spectroscope to split the light into its individual wavelengths.

Using their spectroscope, Kirchhoff and Bunsen discovered that each element produced a unique pattern of colored bands at specific wavelengths. It was like a fingerprint for each element! Sodium had a distinct yellow line, lithium a bright red one, and strontium was red and more. They realized that Fraunhofer's missing lines in the rainbow were related to these spectral lines emitted by burning elements.

By examining sunlight and a sodium flame together, Kirchhoff and Bunsen found that the bright lines emitted by burning sodium matched with two of Fraunhofer's missing lines. They concluded that elements both emitted and absorbed light at specific frequencies. The missing lines in Fraunhofer's rainbow were caused by elements in the sun absorbing those same frequencies.

This discovery meant that by decoding these spectral lines, they could identify the elements present in the sun without ever needing to take a sample from it. It was like magic! Back then, they didn't fully understand why elements emitted and absorbed specific wavelengths, but today we know it's because of their atomic structure.

Each atom has a nucleus with electrons orbiting around in different energy levels. Normally, these electrons stay in their lowest energy level, the ground state. But when you add energy, like heating things up, some electrons jump to higher energy states. It's a fascinating dance of electrons!

So, thanks to the curious minds of Kirchhoff and Bunsen, we now have a way to uncover the secrets of the universe just by looking at the colors emitted by different elements. Isn't that amazing? The rainbow holds so much more than meets the eye!

I love how rainbows, something we see all the time, still hold secrets with missing lines. The rainbow is undeniably a natural masterpiece. It's pure magic because it's not real! Rainbows are actually an optical illusion created by the interaction of light and water, which gives you the incredible opportunity to see a burst of vibrant colors.I absolutely love learning about science and fun facts and sharing them all with you. Stay curious smart people!