Angstrom, Anders Jonas (1814-1874), a Swedish physicist and astronomer, was one of the founders of the science of spectroscopy. This science involves studying light by spreading it out into its individual colors. This range of colors is called a spectrum.
Angstrom was born on Aug. 13, 1814. He studied at Uppsala University. He became professor of physics at Uppsala in 1858. In 1867, he became the first scientist to examine the spectrum of the aurora borealis, a display of light seen in the night sky in the Northern Hemisphere. By studying the spectrum of the sun, he discovered that there is hydrogen in the sun’s atmosphere. In 1868, he published Researches on the Solar Spectrum, with detailed measurements of more than 1,000 lines in the sun’s spectrum. The angstrom, a unit used to measure very short lengths, is named in his honor. He died on June 21, 1874.
