What is meant by the red shift?
The red refers to the red ribbon of light at one end of the rainbow colored spectrum. The bands of color in the spectrum of a star may show an orderly shift to the right. This red shift indicates that the star is receding from us at a certain rate and distance. Astrophysicists use the speed of light as a yardstick to measure the distance of stars and also galaxies scattered through the oceans of space beyond the Milky Way. Light, of course, is an assortment of pulsing wave lengths of energy, traveling at about 186,000 miles per second. Its different wave lengths are revealed in the colored bands of the rainbow spectrum. The longest wave lengths are the red rays at the fight. The wave lengths in each band get shorter through orange and yellow, green and blue. The orderly sequence ends with the violet bands on the left, which have the shortest waves. We can use a glass prism to separate the blended wave lengths in white light into the rainbow spectrum. Astronomers use special instruments
