The Spectrum

• The rainbow-colored portion of the screen (below) represents the spectrum of the binary system.  If you took a spectrum at the telescope, light from both stars would be present, and you would obtain a combined spectrum.  The dark lines represent absorption lines resulting from the atmospheres of the two stars (the red and blue dots above the spectrum indicate from which star the absorption lines originate).  Since the stars are moving around the center of mass, the spectral lines will shift position, depending on how much of the orbital velocity of each star isdirected toward the Earth (the radial velocity).  The amount of the shift, therefore, depends on the orbital inclination. In each "Exploration", note how the spectral line shifts vary as the inclination, or "Earth View", changes.

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