The Mass spectrum reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Mass spectrum

The mass spectrum of any substance is the distribution of matter according to atomic and molecular masses that can be found when a sample of the substance is tested. This distribution is usually found using a mass spectrometer which breaks the substance into ionized fragments (atoms or molecules) which are measured for their mass and relative population. The mass spectrometer produces a graphic depicting the relative intensity (or quantity) versus the mass-to-charge ratio (m/e) of the various constituents of the sample.

This is the "Mass spectrum" reference article from the English Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. See also our Disclaimer.