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The three types of spectra are called “a continuous spectrum” (or continuum emission), “an emission line spectrum” and “an absorption line spectrum”
A continuous spectrum
When Newton did his famous experiment with a prism and sunlight, he noted that the Sun produced a “rainbow” of colours. This is a continuous spectrum. (However, as I will discuss in a future blog, if he had been able to produce a more detailed spectrum he would have noticed some subtleties on this continuous spectrum). So, light from the Sun, and any star, produces a continuous spectrum.
We also get a continuum spectrum from a hot solid, so for example the light produced by incandescent light bulbs is a continuum spectrum. These kinds of bulbs give off light by a very thin coil of metal, the filament, (usually tungsten) getting extremely hot from having an electric current passed through it. When the filament gets to thousands of degrees, it gives off light.
An emission line spectrum
If, instead of looking at the spectrum of the Sun we were to look at the spectrum of an object like Messier 42 (the Orion nebula), we would notice a very different kind of spectrum. Rather than being a continuous spectrum, we would see a series of bright lines with a dark background. We would also see an emission line spectrum if we were to look at the spectrum from one of the fluorescent light sources which are now replacing the incandescent lights in houses.
An absorption line spectrum
An absorption line spectrum is in some ways the converse of an emission line spectrum. Rather than seeing a series of bright lines on a dark background, one sees dark lines on a continuous spectrum.
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