Mastering Optical Depth: Simplifying the Concept for Beginners

  • Context: High School 
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O-r-i-o-n
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Hi Everyone!
I was wondering if someone could help me with Optical Depth, I read some articles about it but since my English isn't that good I couldn't Get it well! I have some views about the Opacity But when it comes to optical depth I'll get lost :D
help!
 
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275 pages? what would you have sent me if I had said my English is good? :D
Thanks man but I needed sth simpler , sthh in high school level (or a little higher)
 
Already read that one , but thanks! I got somethings from that!
 
I don't have a specific question about Optical Depth , I just want to know what it is and what are it's uses and why astronomers use it. and about the 275 pages , really? because the number freaked me out so I didn't go to the details :D , thanks I'll check it out
 
its not only about optical depth, it is about radiative transfer. Why didnt you read the table of contents? First part of chapter 2 introduces optical depth etc.
 
It's basically just a measure of how opaque a given path is to radiation. Optical depth is proportional to the number of (light-absorbing) particles along a given line of sight, so it's a very useful quantity in astronomy when it comes to working out the amounts of atoms or molecules in different gases you're looking through.
 
The optical depth related to the probability of escape of a photon traveling trough a medium. The probability for a photon to escape is e^(-tau), where tau is the optical depth (and is a function of wavelength or frequency).
 
Thank you all! Got what I needed!