GEOS 170A1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Vesto Slipher, Flagstaff, Arizona, Lowell Observatory
19 Jan 2017
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Document Summary
Encompasses all sciences that seek to understand earth and its neighbors in space. The study of the atmosphere and the processes that produce weather. In 1912 at lowell observatory in flagstaff, arizona, vesto slipher was the first to measure the redshift of spiral nebula (now known as a galaxy). Vesto noticed that galaxies were red shifted. Their light spectra were shifted toward the red end of the spectrum. Which means, the amount of lines in a spectrum are shifted indicates how fast the galaxy is moving. Longer wavelengths, moving away from an object. The light from distant galaxies is redshifted--the farther the galaxy is from us, the greater the light is redshifted. In 1912, edwin hubble and milton humason put their observations together in a way that lead to the first realization that the universe is changing over time fact, the universe is expanding. Henrietta swan leavitt made the first discovery, but had little recognition though.
