Total absorption spectroscopy

Total absorption spectroscopy is like a magic trick that helps scientists figure out what kinds of things are in our world. You know how when you look through a pair of colored glasses, everything looks tinted that color? Well, scientists can use special tools to figure out what color a thing is without actually looking at it!

First, they take the thing they want to study and put it in a special, tiny box that only lets in a certain amount of light. Then, they shine a special kind of light on it, which is made up of really tiny, invisible particles called "particles of light" (or photons). When the photons hit the thing they're studying, some of them bounce off and some of them get stuck inside.

Scientists can't see the photons that get stuck inside, but they can see the ones that bounce off. They put a machine called a "detector" on the other side of the box, which can see when the particles of light escape. The detector counts how many photons escape and how fast they're moving.

By looking at how many photons escape, scientists can figure out exactly what color the thing they're studying is made of. And by looking at how fast they're moving, they can figure out what other particles are inside the thing they're studying!

This kind of magic trick is called "total absorption spectroscopy," and it helps scientists learn about the things around us-even things that we can't see with our own eyes.