How Do Astronomer’s use the Spectrum ?
There is gold in there light. First can determine what temperature an object is, this is done by plotting the intensity (how strong) vs the wavelength. The plot you get for example for the sun will have peak at 550 nm, this with a little math gives a temp of 5780 K. If you have an emission or adsorption nebula you can determine what the object is composed. The orbits of electrons around each type of element is slightly different so the energy needed to excite each electron in different types of atoms or molecules is different. So if you know what the spectrum for the various atoms or molecules you can figure out what the object is made of, some stars show a spectrum of molecules and molecules break apart a fairly cool temperatures so these stars must be cool, some stars show no molecules but show ionized atoms these stars are hotter because the molecules have been broken apart. Mass can be determined by the interaction of the object with other objects. When an object moves away from th
