Edwin Hubble

This article is about the astronomer. For the politician, see Edwin N. Hubbell. For the jazz trombonist, see Eddie Hubble.

Edwin Hubble
Portrait by Johan Hagemeyer, 1931
Born
Edwin Powell Hubble

(1889-11-20)November 20, 1889
Marshfield, Missouri, U.S.
DiedSeptember 28, 1953(1953-09-28) (aged 63)
San Marino, California, U.S.
Alma mater
Known for
Spouse
Grace Burke Sr.
​
(m. 1924)​
Awards
See list
Scientific career
FieldsAstronomy
Institutions
Military career
BranchUnited States Army
Years of service1918
RankMajor
Unit86th Division, 2nd Battalion, 343rd Infantry Regiment
Battles / warsWorld War I
Signature
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Edwin Powell Hubble (November 20, 1889 – September 28, 1953)[1] was an American astronomer. He played a crucial role in establishing the fields of extragalactic astronomy and observational cosmology.[2][3]

Hubble proved that many objects previously thought to be clouds of dust and gas and classified as "nebulae" were actually galaxies beyond the Milky Way.[4] He used the strong direct relationship between a classical Cepheid variable's luminosity and pulsation period[5][6] (discovered in 1908 by Henrietta Swan Leavitt[7]) for scaling galactic and extragalactic distances.[8][9]

Hubble confirmed in 1929 that the recessional velocity of a galaxy increases with its distance from Earth, a behavior that became known as Hubble's law, although it had been proposed two years earlier by Georges Lemaître.[10] The Hubble law implies that the universe is expanding.[11] A decade before, the American astronomer Vesto Slipher had provided the first evidence that the light from many of these nebulae was strongly red-shifted, indicative of high recession velocities.[12][13]

Hubble's name is most widely recognized for the Hubble Space Telescope, which was named in his honor, with a model prominently displayed in his hometown of Marshfield, Missouri.

  1. ^ "Biography of Edwin Hubble (1889–1953)". NASA. Archived from the original on June 30, 2011. Retrieved June 21, 2011.
  2. ^ Redd, Nola Taylor. "Famous Astronomers | List of Great Scientists in Astronomy". SPACE.com. Perch. Retrieved April 6, 2018.
  3. ^ Reese, Riley. "Most Influential Astronomers of All Time". Futurism. Jerrick Ventures LLC. Retrieved April 6, 2018.
  4. ^ Hubble, Edwin (December 1926). "Extragalactic nebulae". Astrophysical Journal. 64 (64): 321–369. Bibcode:1926ApJ....64..321H. doi:10.1086/143018.
  5. ^ Udalski, A.; Soszynski, I.; Szymanski, M.; Kubiak, M.; Pietrzynski, G.; Wozniak, P.; Zebrun, K. (1999). "The Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment. Cepheids in the Magellanic Clouds. IV. Catalog of Cepheids from the Large Magellanic Cloud". Acta Astronomica. 49: 223–317. arXiv:astro-ph/9908317. Bibcode:1999AcA....49..223U.
  6. ^ Soszynski, I.; Poleski, R.; Udalski, A.; Szymanski, M. K.; Kubiak, M.; Pietrzynski, G.; Wyrzykowski, L.; Szewczyk, O.; Ulaczyk, K. (2008). "The Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment. The OGLE-III Catalog of Variable Stars. I. Classical Cepheids in the Large Magellanic Cloud". Acta Astronomica. 58: 163. arXiv:0808.2210. Bibcode:2008AcA....58..163S.
  7. ^ Leavitt, Henrietta S. (1908). "1777 variables in the Magellanic Clouds". Annals of Harvard College Observatory. 60: 87. Bibcode:1907AnHar..60...87L.
  8. ^ Freedman, Wendy L.; Madore, Barry F.; Gibson, Brad K.; Ferrarese, Laura; Kelson, Daniel D.; Sakai, Shoko; Mould, Jeremy R.; Kennicutt, Jr., Robert C.; Ford, Holland C.; Graham, John A.; Huchra, John P.; Hughes, Shaun M. G.; Illingworth, Garth D.; Macri, Lucas M.; Stetson, Peter B. (2001). "Final Results from the Hubble Space Telescope Key Project to Measure the Hubble Constant". The Astrophysical Journal. 553 (1): 47–72. arXiv:astro-ph/0012376. Bibcode:2001ApJ...553...47F. doi:10.1086/320638. S2CID 119097691.
  9. ^ Freedman, Wendy L.; Madore, Barry F. (2010). "The Hubble Constant". Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics. 48: 673–710. arXiv:1004.1856. Bibcode:2010ARA&A..48..673F. doi:10.1146/annurev-astro-082708-101829. S2CID 119263173.
  10. ^ "Astronomer Sleuth Solves Mystery of Big Cosmos Discovery by Nola Taylor Redd, Space.com, November 14, 2011". Space.com. November 14, 2011.
  11. ^ Hubble, Edwin (1929). "A relation between distance and radial velocity among extra-galactic nebulae". PNAS. 15 (3): 168–173. Bibcode:1929PNAS...15..168H. doi:10.1073/pnas.15.3.168. PMC 522427. PMID 16577160.
  12. ^ Slipher, V. M. (1917). "Nebulæ". Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. 56 (5). American Philosophical Society: 403–409. ISSN 0003-049X. JSTOR 984028. Retrieved July 9, 2024.
  13. ^ Segal, I.E. (December 1993). "Geometric derivation of the chronometric redshift". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 90 (23): 11114–11116. Bibcode:1993PNAS...9011114S. doi:10.1073/pnas.90.23.11114. PMC 47932. PMID 11607440.