Title :

Relationship between astronomical objects redshifting and their distance

Research Question:

How does and object redshifting affect an it’s distance when viewed from Earth

Subject :

Physics

Word Count :
2148

Table of Contents Page

Number
Introduction………………………………………………………………………..
3

Understanding the light spectrum and shifts…………………………………....4

Analysis of galaxy velocity………………………………………………...........5-7

Radial Velocity Method………………………………………………………....7-

8

Analysis of redshift and distance……………………………………………...8-

11

Conclusion………………………………………………………………………..12

Citation…………………………………………………………………………...14
 Introduction
Astrophysics is a well known part of the physics branch. It is complicated
when you go in dept involving math and sciences but exciting and beautiful to
view during the night. Astrophysics is like a big cluster which applies various
different branches of physics into one topic such as classical mechanics,
electromagnetism, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, theories of relativity,
nuclear and particle physics and tons of atomic and molecular physics. This topic
started to gain popularity during the mid 19th century. This branch of physics
became popular amongst people due to some people that have a career from this
branch of physics. Some well known people that stand out in the world of
astrophysics are Stephen Hawking, Neil DeGrasse Tyson even Brian May from the
band Queen. Famous companies have also made this branch of physics stand out.
The most famous being NASA then followed by SpaceX. The topic astrophysics in
general is about using the laws of physics and chemistry to explain the birth and
death of stars, galaxies, nebulas and other astronomical events and celestial bodies
which are present in outer space. It’s goal is to answer the questions of the world
such as how does the universe work, are we alone in the universe and how did we
get where we are right now. There are also other things this topic tries to answer
such as weather, time travel is possible, do wormholes exist, what’s inside of a
black hole, what is dark energy and dark matter and the origin of cosmic rays that
are in the universe. Astrophysics really began from Sir Issac Newton in the 17th
century, Before him all the astronomical events were explained but only by very
complex mathematical equation but he simplified those and made it easier for
people to understand because of that he found the equation for the force of gravity
and other important physics equations. Making the tough equations simple for
people also encouraged people to become astrophysicists and try to crack the
mystery of our universe. Astrophysics is not all about physics equations. It also
explains events in outer space like movements such as objects in space moving
away or close to from our planet earth. Even though movement may not sound that
impressive compared to other things you can learn in astrophysics even the little
things in astrophysics can be the same as the big things if you go in dept with
them. An example would be red or blue shifting.

Understanding the light spectrum and shifts

The term redshifting comes from the electromagnetic spectrum. particularly
the visible light spectrum. The light spectrum is a variety of colours that our naked
eye can detect. Those colours are the colours we can see if we shine light through a
transparents glass prism. The lights have wavelengths and we measure the colour
of the light due to its length of its wave. The shortest wave is a blue violet and the
longest is red. Redshifting and blueshifting has helped us detect many astronomical
objects such in outer space such as galaxies, stars and exo-planets and their
distance from our earth. The main source of red and blue shifting comes from the
light spectrum. When a light from an object in space reflects back to us at earth and
its light wavelength is longer then we know it is redshifting because red is the
longest wavelength and due to red being the longest light wavelength we therefore
know that the object is moving away from planet earth hence it is far away from
us, But when the object in space reflects back a light that is close to a more blue
light then we know it is blueshifting and is closer to earth because blue is the
shortest light wavelength. Redshifting is an example of a phenomenon called The
Doppler Effect founded by an Austrian physicist Christian Doppler. We know this
is true because just like sound, light is also a wave and just like sound waves of
something in motion such as an airplane, when the plane takes off the front end of
the plane produces a more compressed noise with a higher frequency while the
back end of the plane that is in motion produced a more stretched noise with a
lower frequency. This effect can also be seen with light waves as well since it can
be stretched and compressed as well similar to sound waves. The stretching and
compressing also gives the light waves colour and with that we are able to measure
whether an object in space redshifts or blueshifts towards one end of the visible
light spectrum. Redshifting and blueshifting of an astronomical objects can be
measured by scientists using a study called spectroscopy. Spectroscopy takes
advantage of atoms absorbing and emitting light at specific wavelengths. How
spectroscopy works is that it takes advantage of the fact that electrons in an atom
change their energy states, going from a ground state to an excited state and that
shift in energy releases a photon and that photon is released as a certain
wavelength and using the relation between wavelength and colour that photon
helps us figure out the colour of the light wave that is being emitted from a distant
astronomical object.
Redshifting also helps us discover velocities of a galaxy or planet. When we
use a spectrometer to obtain its light waves we get back something that looks like
figure 1.

(Figure 1)
The black lines in the figure are called spectral lines which tells us the temperature,
density and the element in the astronomical object for this example the
astronomical object is a distant galaxy. The information we get from the spectral
lines are information about the distant galaxy that is in motion but thanks to the big
bang the element present in that galaxy will also be present here in our earth
therefore we can compare the result we got from the galaxy with the elements we
have on our planet. This helps us because the elements we have here on earth are
stationary compared to the elements we get from the distant galaxy which is in
motion. Once we find the same element present in earth we get something that
looks alot like figure 2.

(Figure 2)
Looking at figure two, we can tell that the spectral lines have all shifted towards
the left and this shift that is visible with the spectral line has a name called the
doppler shift. Now with the information present we can find out the velocity of this
distant galaxy.

(Figure 3)
Now let’s say that the first spectral line that we got from the spectroscope shown in
figure 3 is around 420 nanometres in the distant galaxy and the element got shifted
to around 390 nm shown in figure 2. Then we can find the different in nanometres
to find out the amount the spectral line has shifted.
420nm - 390nm = 30nm
All the spectral lines have shifted 30nm to the left and now using the doppler
equation we can find out the velocity of the moving galaxy using the data above.
𝛥𝜆= 30nm
𝜆0 = 390 nm
𝑐= 3.0 x 108m/s

𝛥𝜆 𝑐
=
𝜆𝑐 𝑐
𝑐𝑐
𝑐=𝑐
𝑐𝑐
30𝑐𝑐
𝑐= ( 3.0 x 108m/s ) ( )
390𝑐𝑐

𝑐= 2.3 x 106m/s
Using the doppler equation we get the velocity of the distant galaxy to be
2.3 x 10^6 m/s. This was only possible due to the redshift of the galaxy, we got to
find the velocity of distant galaxy just from information that we got from a galaxy
that was shifting in the light spectrum.
Redshift also helps us discover exo-planets. There is a technique called
radial velocity method that is used to discover exo-planets using redshift. Since
every object in space has a center of mass this technique uses that as an advantage
but this only works if the object is being orbited by something. This method is
often used to detect exo-planets that orbits a star. The way this process works is
that it relies on the fact that a star in outer space is not always stationary at one
place at all times. When a star is orbited by a planet, the planet pulls on the bigger
star little by little. Newton’s third law starts to take its place and moves the whole
star in a small circle or ellipse due to the gravitational pull from the exo planet.
When this movement is being viewed the gravitational pull affects the star’s light
spectrum thus creating a red or a blue shift. When the gravitational pull occurs and
the whole star moves closer to the viewer (earth). Earth sees the light spectrum
being shifted towards the blue end of the spectrum thus being blueshifted but if the
star is being moved further away from the viewer then we see the light spectrum of
that star being shifted towards the red end of the spectrum being redshifted. This
phenomenon can be explained with the diagram below.

In the diagram above the star is orbiting around it’s center but the host star is
wobbling as it is orbiting due to the exo-planet’s gravitational pull on the star thus
causing the viewers on earth to see the planet get red or blue shifted depending on
weather the start is wobbling closer or away from earth.

We can use redshift to measure the distance of a celestial object from earth.
We can do this by using a H-alpha spectral diagram. H-alpha diagram measures a
deep red spectral lines that a galaxy emits. This occurs when the hydrogen atom
falls from its third energy state to it’s second. Now to find that distance of the
galaxy from Earth we first need to find the redshift value and match it to a chart of
redshift values that have already converted the values into distances. Just like how
we calculated the velocity of the distant galaxy using the example of figure 2 and 3
we will now use a H-alpha spectrum of a galaxy to find out it’s distance from
Earth.

(Figure 4)

Figure 4 is the H-alpha spectrum of the galaxy that is visible in the center of Figure
5
(Figure 5)
Looking at figure 4 the normal measurement of hydrogen absorption lines is
around 4861Å and the value of hydrogen given off from the galaxy NGC1357 is
higher. It is around 6563Å

Let z represent the redshift value

𝜆𝑐 −𝑐𝑐
z = 𝜆𝛥𝜆 =
𝑐 𝑐𝑐

z = [ (6563 - 4861) / 4861 ] = 0.35

Since we not got our z value as 0.35 we can compare this number to our
conversion chart and figure out the distance to that galaxy from earth.
 -
(Figure 7)

If we compare our z value to the chart in figure 7 the numbers come to roughly 3.5
billion light years away from Earth. Using our calculation about redshift we got to
find out the distance of the galaxy from our earth.
 In the end we have come into conclusion that redshifting has helped to figure
out many things about outer space that we would not have got to understand
without it. For example such as velocity of galaxies, the discovery of exo-planets
and the distance between a celestial object and the earth. The light spectrum has
helped us learn more about outer space by playing a big role in red and blue
shifting and with the help of powerful telescopes we wish to look for things that
are even farther out away from me redshifting so much that are not able to see with
our current technology.

Citations
Format : AIP
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(Accessed September 3, 2019).

Las Cumbres Observatory, Redshift, https://lco.global/spacebook/light/redshift/

(Accessed July 12, 2019).

Space.com, What is Astrophysics?, https://www.space.com/26218-astrophysics.html

(Accessed August 13, 2019).

How stuff works, Spectroscopy Basis, https://science.howstuffworks.com/laser-analysis2.htm

(Accessed September 3. 2019)

The Planetary Society, Radial Velocity, http://www.planetary.org/explore/space-

topics/exoplanets/radial-velocity.html
(Accessed September 3).

The Radial Velocity Method, ESO Press Photo 22e/07 (25 April 2007),
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doppler_spectroscopy#/media/File:ESO_-
_The_Radial_Velocity_Method_(by).jpg
(Accessed September 2, 2019).

The Hubble Law Lab, http://astro.wku.edu/101-bin/hubble/measuregal.cgi?NGC1357

(Accessed August 21, 2019).

The Hubble Law Lab, http://astro.wku.edu/101-bin/hubble/measurespec.cgi?NGC1357

(Accessed August 21, 2019).