In 1963 Caltech astronomer Maarten Schmidt observed that quasar 3C273 was moving at 15.8 percent of the speed of light away from us and thus conculded it could not be an object in our galaxy since it would have left the galaxy a long time ago at that speed. What feature of the quasar to did he measure to obtain that value?

Question

Bowman

Physics

12 September, 07:14

In 1963 Caltech astronomer Maarten Schmidt observed that quasar 3C273 was moving at 15.8 percent of the speed of light away from us and thus conculded it could not be an object in our galaxy since it would have left the galaxy a long time ago at that speed. What feature of the quasar to did he measure to obtain that value?

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Babs · Answer 1

The quasar's red shift

Explanation:

When there is a change in the wavalength of a wave due to the relative motion of the reciever and the transmitter this is known as Doppler effect.

When the observer and the object are moving towards one another then the wavelength shortens. This is called blue shift.

When the observer and the object are moving away from one another then the wavelength lengthens. This is called red shift.

Here, Maarten Schmidt observed the wavelength increasing i. e., red shift. Hence, from this he calculated the speed of the quasar.