Redshift of Spiral Nebulae (Slipher)
Corrimiento al rojo de las nebulosas espirales (Slipher)
- Date
- 1912-1917 · confidence high
- Place
- Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, Arizona, United States
- Credited to
- Vesto Slipher
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
Slipher measured the spectra of more than a dozen spiral nebulae and found that almost all showed a redshift: they were receding from us at great speed, data Hubble would later use to formulate the law of universal expansion.
Slipher did not connect these velocities with an expanding universe; it was Hubble who combined his data with distances in 1929 to formulate the law that bears his name.
What it led to
- First evidence that spiral nebulae are receding from us
- Velocity data that Hubble combined with distances in 1929
- Observational foundation of the expansion of the universe