What is this image?
It is an emission spectrum.
What is the symbol Å and what does it represent?
Å is a Swedish letter that stands for angstrom. An angstrom is a unit of length equal to 10-10 m. This is 0.1 nm. Even though this is a decimal fraction of a meter, it is not a standard SI unit. It is an old unit used to measure the size of atoms.
What is 6000 Å in μm?
0.6 μm
You should be able to do this in your head.
1 Å = 10-10 m
1000 Å = 10-7 m
10-6 m = 1 μm
What is the scale measuring?
Wavelength
What do Na, H, Ca and Hg represent?
These are the atomic symbols for sodium, hydrogen, calcium and mercury, respectively.
What does the 1 represent?
It is unclear what was intended. This is not standard. However, I suspect that they are using “1” in its meaning of “unity”, indicating all frequencies.
What do the colored lines represent?
They mark the frequencies that are emitted by electrons as they move from higher energy levels to lower energy levels in the atom.
What is the “opposite” of this image?
An absorption spectrum which shows the entire spectrum except for dark lines in the same locations as the bright lines on the emission spectrum. The dark lines in the absorption spectrum are caused by light at those frequencies being absorbed by the atom.
What color is a sodium flame test?
Yellow
You can see bright yellow lines in the emission spectrum of sodium in the image.
What color is a calcium flame test?
Orange-red
Although there is also yellow in the spectrum of calcium, the orange and red lines dominate.
About what wavelength would you expect a red laser to emit in nanometers?
The red part of the spectrum is around 7000 Å, which is 700 nm.
A common red laser pointer emits light with a wavelength of 650 nm.
What other wavelengths that are not shown can be emitted by these atoms?
Wavelengths in the ultraviolet region
CoMo Science 
Leave a comment