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Vesto Slipher
Why Are The Speeds So High?
There is a strong relationship between a galaxy's distance and the speed it moves away from our solar system. The further a galaxy, the faster it moves away.
Radial Velocities
Radial velocities are defined as whether an object is moving toward you or away from you along your line of sight.
Using exposure times that were sometimes up to 80 hours long, Slipher was the first to measure radial velocities of spiral nebulae.
The radial velocity of a star is measured by the Doppler Effect that its motion produces.
Where there any more?
Slipher measured two dozen more spiral nebulae and recognized that they were all travelling at incredible speeds, too.
Some were blueshifted and moved toward the Milky Way, but most were redshifted and moving away.
Doppler Effect In Findings
The light waves coming off Andromeda are "blueshifted". This means its light waves are pressed together by the Doppler effect and end up appearing more blue because of its movement toward our solar system.
The names Slipher,
Vesto Slipher.
Velocity of the Andromeda Galaxy
- In 1896, at the age of 21, V. Slipher attended Indiana University to get a degree in astronomy and mechanical engineering.
- In 1901, V. Slipher began working at the new Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. He was only meant to have a short-term position, but Lowell and Slipher worked so well together that Slipher remained at the observatory for his entire 50 year career.
How does the Doppler Effect
help measure velocities?
What is the Doppler Effect?
Approaching the sun at 300 km/s (which is about a million kilometers per hour)
This is far faster than any other object in the Milky way, which suggests that the nebula is not within our galaxy.
The Doppler Effect is the change in wavelength of sound or light that is due to the relative motion of the source toward or away from the observer.
If a star is moving away from you, you see the wavelengths stretched out and the wavelength is a positive number. Spectral lines appear on the red end of the spectrum --> redshift
If a star is moving toward you, you see the wavelengths as compressed and the wavelength is a negative number. Spectral lines appear on the blue end of the spectrum --> blueshift