Spectroscope and spectral analysis
Espectroscopio y análisis espectral
- Date
- 1859-1860 · confidence high
- Place
- Heidelberg, Baden, Germany
- Credited to
- Gustav Kirchhoff and Robert Bunsen
- People
- 👤 Gustav Kirchhoff1824–1887👤 Robert Bunsen1811–1899
- Field
- Communication
What it is
An instrument and method for identifying elements by their spectral lines, with which Bunsen and Kirchhoff discovered caesium and rubidium and explained the Sun's Fraunhofer lines. It made it possible to determine the chemical composition of the stars.
Published in 1860 in Annalen der Physik.
What it led to
- Astrophysics: the composition of the Sun and the stars
- The discovery of new elements (caesium, rubidium, thallium, helium)
- Instrumental chemical analysis
- Quantum physics (the explanation of spectral lines)
Built on
- Fraunhofer lines in the solar spectrum1814
- Diffraction grating1785 / 1821
- Bunsen burner1855
- Fraunhofer lines (1814)
- Newton's prism and optics
Made possible
- Evershed effect in sunspots1909
- Redshift of Spiral Nebulae (Slipher)1912-1917
- Spectral astrophysics
- Discovery of helium (1868)
- Modern spectrometry