by Chris Peterson » Wed Sep 09, 2009 1:31 am
astrolabe wrote:1.) For the sake of orientation, is the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) going before us and we are catching up or is it behind us and it's catching up.
If I understand the galactic coordinates as plotted (why don't they overlay a grid?), then M31 is in the lower left quadrant, meaning that in your terminology, you could say it's in front of us.
2.) Because of our motion with respect to the CMBR do Galaxies in the red-shifted half appear to have a different rate of accelerated expansion per given distance than the ones in the blue-shifted half, just generally speaking of course.
No way to know. In part, it depends on the interpretation of the data. It's possible that it shows an asymmetry in the expansion rate of space, but it's more likely that we're just seeing a Doppler shift (which is different than what causes cosmological redshifts) because we are moving relative to the background. That latter is the more widely accepted view, and if true, means the expansion of space is uniform and it doesn't matter in what direction we look at some particular galaxy. Of course, this effect is small compared with ordinary cosmological redshift, and there's no way to separate cosmological redshift from Doppler redshift. When we measure any galaxy's redshift, we are going to see both, but since we don't know the galaxy's distance with extreme accuracy, nor our relative velocities, we can only assume that most of the shift is cosmological.
3.) And lastly, one could surmise the point that if a Galaxy does not display a shift (either toward the red or blue) then it's pace is more in keeping or similar with our own Milky Way? Or is it possibly on a different angular vector- seemingly more perpendicular or acute in nature?
If we see no redshift, it means that the combination of the expansion of space and the relative motion of the two galaxies results in no redshift (not very profound). We don't see that with any distant galaxies, but we might with nearby galaxies, where redshift from the expansion of space could be zero, or at least small compared with Doppler redshift. And yes, the redshift is only useful for the vector component that is in our direction. It doesn't tell anything about the motion component perpendicular to our direction of view.
[quote="astrolabe"]1.) For the sake of orientation, is the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) going before us and we are catching up or is it behind us and it's catching up.[/quote]
If I understand the galactic coordinates as plotted (why don't they overlay a grid?), then M31 is in the lower left quadrant, meaning that in your terminology, you could say it's in front of us.
[quote]2.) Because of our motion with respect to the CMBR do Galaxies in the red-shifted half appear to have a different rate of accelerated expansion per given distance than the ones in the blue-shifted half, just generally speaking of course.[/quote]
No way to know. In part, it depends on the interpretation of the data. It's possible that it shows an asymmetry in the expansion rate of space, but it's more likely that we're just seeing a Doppler shift (which is different than what causes cosmological redshifts) because we are moving relative to the background. That latter is the more widely accepted view, and if true, means the expansion of space is uniform and it doesn't matter in what direction we look at some particular galaxy. Of course, this effect is small compared with ordinary cosmological redshift, and there's no way to separate cosmological redshift from Doppler redshift. When we measure any galaxy's redshift, we are going to see both, but since we don't know the galaxy's distance with extreme accuracy, nor our relative velocities, we can only assume that most of the shift is cosmological.
[quote]3.) And lastly, one could surmise the point that if a Galaxy does not display a shift (either toward the red or blue) then it's pace is more in keeping or similar with our own Milky Way? Or is it possibly on a different angular vector- seemingly more perpendicular or acute in nature?[/quote]
If we see no redshift, it means that the combination of the expansion of space and the relative motion of the two galaxies results in no redshift (not very profound). We don't see that with any distant galaxies, but we might with nearby galaxies, where redshift from the expansion of space could be zero, or at least small compared with Doppler redshift. And yes, the redshift is only useful for the vector component that is in our direction. It doesn't tell anything about the motion component perpendicular to our direction of view.