It's a pattern of lines which is shifted (not just one line). Each element has its own unique pattern (wavelengths) of emission (or absortption). It's easy, for example, to recognise the 'pattern' that Hydrogen emits, regardless of where it is on the spectrum.
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Originally Posted by rogerg
Something I haven't understood about redshift is this:
You see the emittion lines from the distant object that have been shifted. But how do you know they have been shifted? Sure, we know that certain atoms emit certain lines in the spectrum (forgive me if my simplistic terminology is all wrong!) but how do we know the shifted emittion we are looking at is actually shifted and not different atoms emitting different bands in the spectrum?
err... if that makes sense.
Roger.
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