• Question: Do you use redshift?

    Asked by redsupergiant to Mark on 23 Apr 2020.
    • Photo: Mark Kennedy

      Mark Kennedy answered on 23 Apr 2020:

      Hi there,

      Thanks for the question. I don’t need to use redshift very often within my work. This is mainly because the objects that I study are within our Galaxy, so the distances to them are quite small. This means that their redshift is really, really small, and it’s effect on our data is too small to measure.

      As soon as you start studying objects in other galaxies, you need to start using redshift, and this allows you to shift your data so that it makes sense.

      Let me know if you want anymore detail on this and I can look up some resources for you.

      Mark

Comments

  • Photo: Brian

    Brian commented on :

    Hi redsupergiant!

    Although redshift is normally talked about for things in space, it’s also used in other contexts in science. You might also know it as the “Doppler shift”, like the change in pitch when a fire brigade goes past you really fast. You know, the way the NEE NAW suddenly sounds lower as it passes you, right?

    Something similar like that happens in what I’m working on with some friends in work – we’re looking at how you can do proper mobile data connections for really high speed trains. There’s a problem that as they go so fast, that Doppler shift ends up messing with the frequencies coming to and from the phones, shifting them up or down from what they should be. This can confuse the message and mess it up! We’re looking to see is there cool ways to prevent that happening by using certain signal formats instead of others.

    Brian