How will the spectrum of light help us understand the universe?

Answer 1

Age is kind of a mystery to me.

Distance, though...

Spectra show characteristic lines. They indicate the presence of specific elements, and they're always at the same frequency.

Except they're not. Very distant objects show the right pattern of lines, but "shifted" to the red to some amount. Since we know what the lines' frequencies are supposed to be, we can calculate the amount of this "redshift".

The amount of redshift tells us, indirectly, the distance, by comparison to other objects that we can actually measure the distance to using other techniques (redshift is proportional to distance).

This sort of relates to "age" in a way: the further away something is, the longer it took for the light to get to us, and so based on the distance we can calculate that the light we're now seeing must have actually been emitted x million years ago or whatever (physicists are cringing at this sentence, because relativity says there's no such thing as universal time).

Answer 2

It has already with hundreds of different discoveries. We are able to tell the different contents of our Universe based on the color of light that is being emitted through the Telescopes eye. The telescope only reads the certain light spectrum's one at a time. Once the Hubble sends the information back to earth, our computers mix those lights into a black and white photo. This in terms takes many many hours to complete. Those beautiful pictures of the Universe and Galaxies are down with the basic spectrum's of light.

Light has also gave us a better understanding of what our neighboring stars are created from. Its a reason why we know stars from 100's of light years away are made up of liquid Hydrogen. This helps us better understand how stars are boring, how they destruct and how they interfere with its neighboring planets

Answer 3

The spectrum of light allows scientists to analyze the composition, temperature, and motion of astronomical objects, providing valuable information about the universe's properties and behaviors. By studying different wavelengths of light emitted or absorbed by celestial bodies, researchers can unravel mysteries such as composition of stars, galaxies, and interstellar gases, and even detect the presence of planets around distant stars.