Blackbody Radiation Spectrum

Let's examine the emission spectrum of a blackbody as a function of its temperature.

We will explore linear and logarithmic scales for the y-axis.

This has application for the color of stars in astronomy.

Click to navigate to the spectrum!

Blackbody Radiation Temperature Wavelength Maximum
T= 300 K 100 mm Emissive Power visible region 0
Emissive 10000 3.12E+01
l Power 300 10,000 moves green tracer line on black curve
0.10 1.81E-195 1.81E-195

Emissive Power
0.15 6.53E-127 6.53E-127 UV Vis 100 1.00E+10
IR
1.00E+10 log-log scale graph
0.20 8.12E-93 8.122E-93 400 nm 100 0.0001 700 nm
0.30 5.61E-59 5.606E-59 1.00E+08 0.4 1.00E-05 100 3.43E+01 0.7 1.00E-05
0.40 3.05E-42 3.045E-42 0.4 0.0001 0.7 0.0001
0.50 2.60E-32 2.6E-32 1.00E+06 0.4 -1.00E+00 0.7 -1.00E+00
0.60 9.18E-26 9.182E-26
0.70 3.87E-21 3.873E-21 1.00E+04
0.80 1.04E-17 1.043E-17
0.90 4.52E-15 4.525E-15 1.00E+02
1.0 5.51E-13 5.514E-13
1.00E+00
1.5 6.38E-07 6.381E-07
2.0 4.49E-04 0.0004489
1.00E-02
3.0 1.75E-01 0.1752312
4.0 2.26E+00 2.2640805 1.00E-04
5.0 8.16E+00 8.1649145 0.1 1Wavelength (micrometers) 10 100
6.0 1.62E+01 16.238688
8.0 2.85E+01 28.49567
10 3.12E+01 31.155798 wavelength = 100000 nm NON log-log plot
20 1.17E+01 11.688117
30 3.90E+00 3.9009631 Vary the temperature to see how the blackbody emission spectrum behaves.
40 1.58E+00 1.5769283
60 3.93E-01 0.3930592 Sinex 2008
80 1.39E-01 0.1390338 Modified from: http://faculty.virginia.edu/ribando/modules/xls/HTTplnkslaw.xls
100 6.08E-02 0.0607926

This graph with linear scales responds to the parameters above. Note the shorter wavelength range.
 35

30

25

Emissive Power
20

15

10

0
0 1 2 3 4 Wavelength,
5 mm
6 7 8 9 10

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