Redshift Animations

  • Released Thursday, March 11, 2021
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As the universe expands, it stretches the wavelengths of light along with it, a process called redshift. The farther away an object is, the more the light from it has stretched by the time it reaches us.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech//R. Hurt (Caltech-IPAC)

Stretching over distance makes redshift one of the key tools for measuring the universe. Since astronomers can usually determine what wavelength they would see from up close, they can tell how far a galaxy is by how much the light has changed.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech//R. Hurt (Caltech-IPAC)

Distant galaxies have all of their visible light shifted into infrared.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech//R. Hurt (Caltech-IPAC)

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NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. However, individual items should be credited as indicated above.

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This page was originally published on Thursday, March 11, 2021.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:44 PM EDT.