In the 1960s,Maarten Schmidt determined that quasars were very distant objects by
A)determining how luminous they were.
B)determining how small the source of light was from its variations in luminosity.
C)discovering that they were embedded in distant galaxies.
D)determining their redshifts.
E)determining their parallax angles.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Maarten Schmidt determined that quasars were very distant objects by determining their redshifts. This is because redshift is a measure of how much the light from an object has been stretched as it travels through space, and this stretching is caused by the expansion of the universe. By measuring the redshift of a quasar's light, Schmidt was able to determine how far away it was and confirm that it was an extremely distant object.

In the 1960s,Maarten Schmidt Determined That Quasars Were Very Distant