When stars explode at death, all the matter that built up in their outer shells gets blown out into interstellar space. Carbon, oxygen, silicon, gold, and silver were all floating around as clouds of elements in space, then gravity pulled them together to form the planets. This is how the planet Earth formed with its ninety-two natural elements,

... See more

Starlight and sunlight, split by a diffraction grating, display their own distinctive patterns of colour. I have always wanted to see this for myself, and recently bought an old spectrograph. It resembles two miniature telescopes mounted on a dais marked with numbers, and has been testing my poor skills and my patience for weeks. Then yesterday,

... See more