Quote:
Originally Posted by glend
I recommend the Cool Worlds Utube video which sets out the astrophysics reasons detailing why there are no green stars visible to us.
Find it here:
https://youtu.be/vXOYbzQ4jDA?si=6D1aLgG5I-KYoRLO
I do not dispute that green stars cannot Exist in the Universe. However, I have many narrowband images taken over many years, which do appear to include significant green emissions. So where does the interstellar green come from? |
Hi Glen,
By chance did you ever take a course in quantum mechanics?
Quantum mechanics is a compulsory second year course for Electrical
Engineers and to the best of my knowledge it is possibly the only
discipline that makes practical use of it. But that matters neither
here nor there for this discussion.
I remember the very first pages of the quantum mechanics text we
used (Eisberg and Resnick) was an introduction to "black body radiation"
and the associated Planck's Postulate.
So what the hell is black body radiation? As we all know, when you heat
something up to a sufficiently high temperature, it can start to glow
in a darkened room. Like a horseshoe in a blacksmith's forge. That
light which is emitted is what is referred to as black body radiation
and it is a function of temperature that follows that curve as the professor
explains in the video. So stars are emitting black body radiation and as he
shows in the video, the nature of the curve is that it will never be
narrowband enough to pass light only in the middle visible wavelengths.
Now when you have the green glow of a nebuia (I see both magenta
and green when I look at M42), that is a different kettle of fish.
That gas is being stimulated by ionizing radiation from a nearby star,
typically in the ultraviolet, which causes electrons in the gas to jump
to a higher energy state (there's that quantum mechanics again) and then
fall back and emitting photons.
It's like the difference between an incandescent light bulb and a florescent tube.
The light is generated in two entirely different ways and the physics differs.
I know the professors video was directed at the general public but I
found he was somewhat lax in not explaining that color is not some
attribute of the physical world. Color comes about from processing in
our brain. The universe does not have red, green and blue light but
long, medium and short wavelengths of radiation in what we perceive
as the visible spectrum. Though it is convenient for us to say, "this star
is red" or "this star is blue", that may lead some people to think "color"
is some attribute of the physical world. It is not. Color is in the mind.