Thomson scattering

Thomson scattering is when a person takes a beam of light, like a laser, and scatters it around. It's named after a scientist called Joseph Thomson who first discovered it. When the light is scattered it can start out as one color of light but scatter into lots of different colors. This happens when the light hits something like a piece of paper and gets reflected off of it in lots of different directions. It's like when you throw a handful of popcorn kernels onto the ground - they scatter all over the place! Thomson scattering is important in astronomy, as it helps us to understand how stars and galaxies were formed.