Idaho Skies Transcript for December 11th and 12th

PAUL
Welcome to Idaho Skies for December 11th and 12th. We’re your hosts, Paul...

RACHEL
...and Rachel.

PAUL
On December 12th, 1871, English astronomer Sir Norman Lockyer was in India to view a total solar eclipse.

RACHEL
He experienced a lot of difficulty getting to India, so Lockyer was very happy to be there in time to prepare for the eclipse.

PAUL
At the business end of his telescope was a spectroscope, or an instrument designed to split the sun’s light into its component colors.

RACHEL
Lockyer was looking for thin dark lines in the rainbow of light that his spectroscope produced.

PAUL
This was because in 1868, he and French astronomer Pierre Janssen discovered the opposite, a bright yellow line in the sun’s spectrum during a similar eclipse.

RACHEL
By this time, astronomers and physicists understood that hot atoms emit patterns of colored lines unique to each element.

PAUL
The yellow line Lockyer and Janssen discovered had never been observed in any experiment performed on Earth before.

RACHEL
Lockyer understood this line came from a new element, one unknown on Earth.

PAUL
So he named the element after the sun god, Helios.

RACHEL
Helium would not be discovered on Earth until 1895, some 27 years later.

PAUL
The ability to detect elements on the sun contradicted the writings of philosopher Auguste Comte.

RACHEL
Comte claimed that the doctrine of Positivism meant that humans could never know the composition of the stars.

PAUL
Primarily because we could never travel to the stars to collect samples.

RACHEL
So by traveling to India with a telescope, Lockyer was using the black line(s) in the solar spectrum to discover the elements making up the sun.

PAUL
Score one for science and technology.

RACHEL
That’s Idaho Skies for the 11th and 12th of December.

PAUL
Be sure to follow us on Twitter @IdahoSkies for this week’s event reminders and sky maps.

For Idaho Skies this is Paul...

RACHEL
...and Rachel.

PAUL
Dark skies and bright stars.