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Can anyone explain amounts of redshift and how things can be moving faster than c?

 
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May30-11, 10:32 AM   #1
 

Can anyone explain amounts of redshift and how things can be moving faster than c?


Just a little confused about amounts of redshift, I read somewhere about redshift and how some galaxies are moving at redshift 3 (I think), which was said to be at or near the speed of light, then later in the article is said a galaxy was found to be moving at redshift 6.

I understand how the universe is expanding, and its this expansion that is increasing the distance, what I dont get is how some things are moving away faster than others, Is it relevant to their distance from us or something?

So any help here would "ease my worried mind, ooooh".
 
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May30-11, 10:56 AM   #2
 
Quote by EMFsmith View Post
Just a little confused about amounts of redshift, I read somewhere about redshift and how some galaxies are moving at redshift 3 (I think), which was said to be at or near the speed of light, then later in the article is said a galaxy was found to be moving at redshift 6.

I understand how the universe is expanding, and its this expansion that is increasing the distance, what I dont get is how some things are moving away faster than others, Is it relevant to their distance from us or something?

So any help here would "ease my worried mind, ooooh".
Galaxies that are farther away are moving away more rapidly than galaxies that are closer to us. This is because space is expanding more rapidly as the distances increase. The farther something is, the more rapid its motion away from us. In fact, if you keep looking far enough, you'll find galaxies moving near the speed of light away from us, because space is expanding that fast at those distances.

In case you do not know, anything that is beyond 14 billion light years away from us is moving away from us at GREATER than the speed of light. This means that it is beyond the observable part of our universe and we cannot see it because the light that has left those places have not reached us. This does not violate Special Relativity because the galaxy is not moving at greater than the speed of light relative to the space around it, but because the expansion of space around it is so great, it exceeds the speed of light.
 
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