Garik Israelian: Spectroscopist

http://www.ted.com/talks/garik_israelian_what_s_inside_a_star.html

Today, I'm posting a TED Talk given by Garik Israelian, who is a spectroscopist that studies "the spectral signatures" of stars and other celestial bodies.  This talk was fascinating because it broadened my horizons regarding what is possible using our knowledge of physics.  I never knew that we could use spectroscopy (the study of light wavelengths and the light spectrum) to deduce information about the universe.  For example, Mr. Israelian talked about how he has observed a planet being consumed by a star by analyzing a spectrograph.  We always think about planets revolving around stars, like those in our own solar system, but I didn't know that a star could consume a planet.  Indeed, it's amazing that he was able to deduce this cleverly using current science. 
I can't wait until we study light wavelengths, because it looks like the reaches of the study of spectroscopy are exceedingly wide-ranging.  Apparently, we can use what we know about the absorbtion spectrum to learn about the chemical composition of stars.  According to Israelian, for our own sun there are 24,000 spectrum lines, and we can't understand the full composition of the sun because of that.  There is so much that we don't know about the universe, but spectroscopy is one of the studies that helps us learn a bit more about it.