periodic table of elements color coded metals

Use Roman numerals I thru VIII to show the families.A Flash animation by Mike Stanfill, Private Hand IQ: What are some ways for organizing information in Science? Why do we organize information?.Each of you needs1 of each of the following colors: Red Orange Blue Green Purple Pink Brown This article originally appeared in the February 2018 issue of BBC Sky at Night Magazine. It enables us to do everything from detecting exoplanets to measuring the expansion of the Universe and inferring the existence of dark matter in galaxies.Īll this from analysis of the colours in the night sky. Today, spectroscopy is perhaps the most powerful tool in an astrophysicist’s toolkit. She worked with husband William in the late 19th century to catalogue the spectra of stars, galaxies and nebulae. Spectroscopy allows astronomers, for example, to identify what elements are present within a nebula.Ī pioneer in the field of spectroscopy work was Margaret Huggins, an unsung hero of astronomy. In the same way as you can split white light up into a rainbow using a prism, splitting observed light up into its spectrum is a technique called spectroscopy. Splitting starlight into its colours - like a prism splittig white light - is called spectroscopy. In fact, every element in the periodic table will emit a unique pattern of colours when excited, and this is the element’s spectrum. Here the gas is being lit up by radiation from the young, newly formed stars, transferring energy to the atoms in the gas and ‘exciting’ them.ĭue to the different atomic structures of the elements in the Orion Nebula, we see different colours when we look at it through a telescope, including pinky-red from hydrogen and green from oxygen. Sticking with Orion, a small telescope shows the fuzzy ‘star’ in the middle of his sword is not a star at all, but the Orion Nebula, a region where new stars are being born. Credit: Ben Brotherton, Herefordshire, 2 November 2021Ī pair of binoculars or a telescope can reveal even more colour in the night sky. The chemistry behind stars' colours The Orion Nebula. The colour of stars may seem counterintuitive based on our everyday experiences of linking colour to temperature (think colour-coding on taps: red for hot and blue for cold) but it’s the same principle as when metal is heated in a forge.įirst you’ll see it start to glow red, then as its temperature increases the metal glows a blue-white. I say cooler, but bear in mind that the surface temperature of Betelgeuse is still around 3,200✬, compared to Rigel’s 10,700✬. It’s the opposite to what you might think: red stars like Betelgeuse are actually cooler than blue stars like Rigel. The reason stars look different colours - some are red, some are blue - is all to do with their temperatures. Star Betelgeuse is a red giant, while Rigel appears bright blue. Why is this? What causes the different colours of stars? Colour can be seen in the stars of the Orion constellation. Look carefully at the star Betelgeuse – Orion’s right shoulder (assuming he’s facing us) – and you’ll notice that it has an orange-red tinge to it.Ĭompare this with the star Rigel, on Orion’s left foot, and you’ll see that Rigel appears much more blue-white. In the colder months, my favourite sight on a clear night is the familiar Orion constellation, and it’s within this pattern of stars that we can see a classic example of colours in the night sky. Take a quick glance up at the night sky and you can be forgiven for thinking that it only exists in black and white, with distant stars appearing as pinpricks of white light against a dark background.īut next time you're stargazing, look a bit closer and even with the naked eye, you’ll start to see that the Universe is awash with colour.įor more advice, read our guide to astronomy for beginners Red and blue stars captured by the Hubble Space Telescope Credit: ESA/Hubble/ NASA If you've ever noticed this, you might have wondered why. Have you ever noticed that stars have colour? Some stars appear red and some stars are blue.

Periodic table of elements color coded metals