Why does the Sun's emission spectrum have missing lines?

Question

I know it is because the electrons in hydrogen and helium absorb them however, they also drop back to ground state immediately and emit the previously absorbed photon. So there should be no net difference as absorbed photon gets emitted. Therefore the emission spectrum should not have missing lines. But they do. What am I missing?

Answer 1

The elements in the hot atmosphere surrounding the Sun absorb their preferred wavelengths of light being beamed out of the sun, but they then re-emit those absorbed photons in random directions- most of which are not aimed at us here on earth. So we see a solar spectrum with dark lines in it- representing those "missing" photons.