• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Sugar in space

Roscoe East

Roscoe East

Aug 22, 2011
2,189
139
#1
This is encouraging & fascinating news ...and yet I find this coverage incredibly frustrating:

http://www.slashgear.com/astronomer...oating-in-gas-around-a-distant-star-30245009/

How do you write an article about scientists discovering molecules -- y'know, those tiny little microscopic thingies -- 400 light years from Earth, without every making any reference to how such miniscule objects were detected at such a great distance?!?!
 
#5
Roscoe East said:
This is encouraging & fascinating news ...and yet I find this coverage incredibly frustrating:

http://www.slashgear.com/astronomers-discover-simple-sugar-molecules-floating-in-gas-around-a-distant-star-30245009/

How do you write an article about scientists discovering molecules -- y'know, those tiny little microscopic thingies -- 400 light years from Earth, without every making any reference to how such miniscule objects were detected at such a great distance?!?!
Click to expand...

Spectroscopy. A most marvellous and precise discipline.
 
#15
i_got_a_mohawk said:
Stick a CD in a box, using the CD tracks as a diffraction grating?

If you had made a monochromator, things would have been different. B****'s love monochromators.
Click to expand...

This was in the days before diffraction gratings were available through Edmund Scientific so mine was done the old fashioned way with a glass prism, some tubes, a slit and an eyepiece.

But I know that you mean about them monochromators.
 
#16
MatticusMania said:
In 5th grade I did a science experiment involving my pet rats, apparently B****'s love rats.
Click to expand...

I remember a girl doing that when I was in high school.

The guys certainly enjoyed her getting her rat out.


mongo2 said:
This wias the day before defraction gratings were available through Edmund Scientific so mine was done the old fashioned way with a glass prism, some tubes, a slit and an eyepiece.

But I know that you mean about them monochromators.
Click to expand...

You don't even need a specialised diffraction grating these days, so many on hand to use!

We have a spectrograph at the back of one of the labs, essentially an antique ;) The angular scale is minutes and seconds!
 
#17
i_got_a_mohawk said:
I remember a girl doing that when I was in high school.

The guys certainly enjoyed her getting her rat out.

You don't even need a specialised diffraction grating these days, so many on hand to use!

We have a spectrograph at the back of one of the labs, essentially an antique ;) The angular scale is minutes and seconds!
Click to expand...

I still use spectrometers with my A level Physics students. That rotary degree/minute scale needs a hand lens and some Brasso. And as for converting into decimals for subsequent calculations...
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back