Aerospace Engineering

Designing a Spectroscopy Mission

Have you heard about scientists and engineers who discover the components of the atmosphere or surface of a far-off planet, star, comet or other astronomical body? How can they know what material(s) forms the molecules and atoms of these bodies without actually physically traveling to them? Sometimes, they send a spaceship to the object or use spacecraft orbiting the Earth, and other times they figure it out using instruments on the ground. In all cases, they use spectrographs to measure the atomic and molecular constituents.

In this month's activity, Designing a Spectroscopy Mission, students find and calculate the angle that light is transmitted through a holographic diffraction grating using trigonometry. After finding this angle, student teams design and build their own spectrographs, researching and designing a ground- or space-based mission using their creation. At project end, teams present their findings to the class, as if they were making an engineering conference presentation. Student must have completed the associated Building a Fancy Spectrograph activity which is a shorter 40 minute activity before attempting this activity. This activity is best completed over four 60-minutes sessions. Both of these activities are part of a larger unit on Spectroscopy.

The Engineering Pathway portal to the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) brings together quality engineering education materials from all over the Internet allowing teachers to search all of these documents in a single location. Each month, during the school year, JETS highlights an Engineering Pathway activity related to the month's topic. This month's activity is from the TeachEngineering Digital Library, which is part of the Engineering Pathway.

For more information on what aeronautical engineer do, visit http://www.jets.org/explore/what/aerospace.cfm