Mass spectrometry

Have you ever played a treasure hunt game where you have to find clues to reach the final destination? Mass spectrometry is like that, but for scientists! They use it to find out what kind of molecules are present in a sample of something.

First, scientists take a tiny sample of the thing they want to study, like a drop of blood or a piece of metal. They then put it into a machine called a mass spectrometer.

Inside the mass spectrometer, the scientists break apart the molecules in the sample into tiny pieces called ions. It's like breaking a toy car into its wheels, engine, and other parts.

Then, the ions travel through a series of electric and magnetic fields that make them move differently based on how heavy they are. The heavy ions move slower than the lighter ones, like how a big truck moves slower than a small car.

After that, the machine detects how many ions of each weight there are and makes a graph of the results. It's like counting how many wheels, engines, and other parts there are from the broken-up toy car.

Scientists then use this information to figure out what molecules were in the sample they studied. Just like a treasure hunter who solves clues to find out the location of the treasure, scientists use mass spectrometry to solve the puzzle of what's in a sample.