The story starts at the end of the nineteenth century, when gifted scientists were systematically filling in gaps in Mendeleev's table by deciphering atomic ... line (609 nm) in the emission ...

This causes line emission spectra to be produced, as shown below. This is not a continuous spectrum as only light of specific frequencies and specific colours are produced. Different types of ...

Studying the line spectra produced by hot gases and absorbed by cooler gases allows us to identify the elements in stars. When a gas is very hot, it doesn’t emit all wavelengths of light.

The MALS team combined this catalogue with the existing maps of 21 centimetres line emission, optical and far-infrared radiation to disentangle the distribution of the interwoven atomic gas phases.

X-ray free-electron lasers are powerful tools for studying matter at the atomic level, but their light pulses are often noisy and lacking in precision.