Astronomers at The Ohio State University have identified a set of light signals that could help researchers study how galaxies change over time. Their findings were reported by Ohio State News on August 31.
The team used computer models to examine how electrons interact with manganese ions, an element made in stellar explosions. They modeled more than 700 possible emission lines, or specific wavelengths of light.
Some of those lines changed noticeably with the temperature and density of the surrounding gas. That could give astronomers a way to read the conditions inside supernova remnants and other large clouds of gas.
The work is theoretical for now, and the researchers plan to compare the predictions with observations from the James Webb Space Telescope and ground-based observatories. The study was published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
