Green Crystal 'Rain' Discovered Near Infant Star 43
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Soulskill
from the somebody-should-stake-a-claim dept.
from the somebody-should-stake-a-claim dept.
An anonymous reader writes with this quote from a NASA press release:
"Tiny crystals of a green mineral called olivine are falling down like rain on a burgeoning star, according to observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. This is the first time such crystals have been observed in the dusty clouds of gas that collapse around forming stars. Astronomers are still debating how the crystals got there, but the most likely culprits are jets of gas blasting away from the embryonic star. ... The crystals are in the form of forsterite. They belong to the olivine family of silicate minerals and can be found everywhere from a periodot gemstone to the green sand beaches of Hawaii to remote galaxies. NASA's Stardust and Deep Impact missions both detected the crystals in their close-up studies of comets. ... The findings (abstract) might also explain why comets, which form in the frigid outskirts of our solar system, contain the same type of crystals."
Re:How do they know (Score:5, Informative)
The linked abstract says:
The mid-infrared spectrum reveals crystalline substructure at 11.1, 16.1, 18.8, 23.6, 27.9, and 33.6 m superimposed on the broad 9.7 and 18 m amorphous silicate features; the substructure is well matched by the presence of the olivine end-member forsterite (Mg2SiO4).
So its basically spectroscopy. You plot amplitude vs wavelength for the light emitted by the star and associated material. Samples of different materials in the lab can be used to give you spectra for comparison. If you have a spectrum for kryptonite you could certainly plug it into the data.