Today in Aliens instead of going into golf as usual we were sent down to the science labs to do a few science tests.
After we were instructed of what to do we got set up with the bunsen burner and started, We were given several small white containers containing different chemicals, they were all a powdery texture and white except for one which was green.
We put a little bit of the powder on a flat piece of metal and place it over a controlled flame. Once the chemicals caught fire all of them changed the colour of the flame. There were many different results, Some went a dark red and some blue, The green powder made the flame go green and one even changed colour the longer it burnt.
When we look up to the sky at night we see thousands of stars, There are about 5,000 stars visible from earth and every single one of them look white, But there not. Stars can be an array of different colours from red to blue, We just can't see this because our eyes have two Light-sensitive organs located at the backs of our eyes: Rod-shaped and Cone-shaped. Both Rods and Cones are sensitive to light the difference between them is that the rods allow us to see in very dim light but don't permit detection of colour while the cones et us see colour but don't work in dim light, . Therefor since the stars colours are already very faint even in good light all our eyes see is the brightness of the stars.
After the test we did i wondered if the colour of the stars may be because of the different chemicals they are burning on.
Although the experiment we did was interesting it did not show an accurate representation of the science behind the colours of stars.
Unlike the chemicals we used today in our experiment, Stars colours are actually made by the level of heat they create. Red being the coldest at 2,000-3,000 k, and dark blue being the hottest at 20,000-30,000 k. maybe it would have been closer to accurate if we changed the strength of the flame to see if that had any effect on the chemicals.
No comments:
Post a Comment