My understanding is that when an object moves away from you it increases the wavelength of the light presenting with a colour that is on the red side of the colourscale. Scientists also are able to determine what elements are present on planets based on the light it emits. How can they tell the difference?
I’m sorry for possibly using the incorrect terminology! Thanks in advance folks!
Edited the post because previously I had suggested that shorter wavelengths tended to the red side when in fact longer wavelengths tended to the red side of the colour spectrum.
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Imagine your name was ABC and everyone knew it. Your sister’s name is LMN and everyone knew it.
Suddenly you start signing your name as BCD, and your sister MNO. It’s pretty clear that something weird is happening and for some reasons you’ve both just started writing your names exactly one letter off.
While it might take you a while to figure out *why* your writing names this way, it’ll still be clear that you are you and your sister is your sister.
That’s what’s happening with red-shifting only instead of names is the exact colors of the light the atoms give off. If we know that all the colors should be a certain way and we find a set of colors that are different, but consistently different in an ‘everything get’s a +1’ sort of way.
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