In: Physics
What are the speed of recession, in kilometers per second, and redshift of a galaxy that is a distance of 183 megaparsecs (Mpc) away? Speed of recession? Redshift?
By Hubble's law, the speed of recession of a galaxy relative to an observer is proportional to its distance from the observer.
The proportionality constant is the Hubble's constant
with value
, which says that if a galaxy is a one megaparsec away, its speed
of recession will be
.
Since the galaxy in the question is at a distance of
, its recession speed
Thus the speed of the galaxy
.
Since the galaxy is moving away from us, the light (or radiation, in general) will be redshifted.
If
is the frequency of radiation emitted by the galaxy and
is the observed frequency of radiation from the galaxy, then the
relativistic Doppler shift formula gives:
where
is the speed of the galaxy. Plugging in the values in metre per
second gives the following.
Redshift is defined as
Thus the redshift of the galaxy is
%.