Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Science 5 August 1966:
Vol. 153. no. 3736, pp. 635 - 638
DOI: 10.1126/science.153.3736.635
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Articles

Doppler Interpretation of Quasar Red Shifts

Harold S. Zapolsky 1

1 Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Maryland, College Park

The hypothesis that the quasistellar sources (quasars) are local objects moving with velocities close to the speed of light is examined. Provided there is no observational cutoff on apparent bolometric magnitude for the quasars, the transverse Doppler effect leads to the expectation of fewer blue shifts than red shifts for an isotropic distribution of velocities. Such a distribution also yields a function N(z), the number of objects with red shift less than z which is not inconsistent with the present data. On the basis of two extreme assumptions concerning the origin of such rapidly moving sources, we computed curves of red shift plotted against magnitude. In particular, the curve obtained on the assumption that the quasars originated from an explosion in or nearby our own galaxy is in as good agreement with the observations as the curve of cosmological red shift plotted against magnitude.


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Quasi-Stellar Objects: Possible Local Origin.
J. Terrell (1966)
Science 154, 1281-1288
   Abstract »    PDF »


To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)