the.com/redshift
the universe stretching your light like cosmic taffy as galaxies flee the scene
means The lengthening of light's wavelength toward the red end of the spectrum, observed when a source moves away from us, used most famously to show that distant galaxies are receding and the universe is expanding.
from A transparent compound of English 'red' and 'shift,' coined by astronomers in the early 20th century to describe exactly what they saw: spectral lines sliding toward the red, longer-wavelength end. The companion term 'blueshift' (for objects approaching) follows the same logic. 'Red' is among the oldest color words in English, traceable through Old English 'rēad' back to a Proto-Indo-European root for redness shared with Latin 'ruber' and many cousins; 'shift' comes from Old English 'sciftan,' to arrange or divide, which drifted over centuries toward the sense of moving or changing position.
- discovery
- Hubble proved the universe expands using it in 1929
- speed proof
- distant galaxies recede faster than nearer ones
- record holder
- some galaxies seen as they were 13 billion years ago
- color shift
- light slides toward red, the spectrum's slow end
- doppler cousin
- same effect that drops a passing siren's pitch
cosmic microwave background — redshift z≈1090, the most ancient light from 380,000 years after the big bang
andromeda galaxy — blueshifted at z≈−0.001, the nearest major galaxy approaching earth at 110 km/s