Fraunhoferlines

Fraun·ho·fer lines (frounʹhō'fər) pl.n.

A set of several hundred dark lines appearing against the bright background of the continuous solar spectrum and produced by absorption of light by the cooler gases in the sun's outer atmosphere at frequencies corresponding to the atomic transition frequencies of these gases.

  [After Joseph von Fraunhofer (1787-1826), German physicist.]

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