Learn more. In the early s, most astronomers believed that the Milky Way galaxy made up the whole of the cosmos. But Edwin Hubble changed everything when he came to the realization that the Milky Way is but one of millions of galaxies in a universe that is constantly expanding.
In discovering the true nature of the cosmos, Hubble became the founder of observational cosmology. His father worked for an insurance company, and the family settled in Wheaton, a suburb of Chicago, when Edwin was nine years old. As a young boy, Hubble was an avid reader and became very interested in science. He was particularly close to his paternal grandfather, who once had an article written by the twelve-year-old Edwin published in a local newspaper.
Interestingly, the article was about Mars. Edwin excelled in academics and even more so in sports by the time he reached Wheaton High School. He was tall and strong, and quite skilled in basketball and boxing.
Hubble also ran track, and set the high jump record for the state of Illinois. Hubble attended the University of Chicago, where he earned an undergraduate degree in astronomy and mathematics in He was awarded a Rhodes scholarship that same year, and traveled to England to study at Queen's College, Oxford. While there, Hubble continued to exercise his athletic abilities, but did not apply himself to the study of astronomy.
It was a promise made to his dying father that saw Edwin instead pursuing law, while also studying literature and Spanish. He received his law degree in In , Edwin came home to the U.
He set up a small law practice in Louisville, Kentucky, where his family had relocated. Hubble also spent time as a teacher of Spanish, Physics, and Mathematics, and a coach of basketball at New Albany High School in Indiana, but he soon found himself longing to return to the field of science. When the school term ended in , Hubble went back to the University of Chicago for postgraduate studies and took a research post at the Yerkes Observatory.
He received his doctorate in astronomy in Hubble was quite popular during his brief time spent teaching, as illustrated by this yearbook dedication:. Hubble, Our beloved teacher of Spanish and Physics, who has been a loyal friend to us in our senior year, ever willing to cheer and help us both in school and on the field, we, the class of , lovingly dedicate this book. Hubble spent an entire night finishing his thesis, completed the oral defense of his dissertation the following morning, and then proceeded to enlist in the U.
Army a few days later. He sent a telegraph to Hale, saying: "Regret cannot accept your invitation. Am off to the war. Hubble served as a captain in the rd Infantry, 86th Division, and eventually earned the rank of major. He was commissioned to France, where he spent time as a field and line officer. Returning to the United States in the summer of , Hubble traveled immediately to the Mount Wilson Observatory and accepted a position there.
Founded by Hale in Pasadena in , Mount Wilson Observatory was, in Hubble's time, the center of observational work on astrophysics. It had the two largest and most powerful telescopes in the world in the inch and inch Hooker reflectors.
During his time at the Yerkes as a postgrad, Hubble began studying faint, hazy patches of light in the sky called nebulae from the Latin word for cloud. By showing that other galaxies existed, scientists had a better idea of the concept of the size of the universe and the possibility of other planets.
The classification system for galaxies that he created now known as the Hubble sequence has been used by other researchers for nearly a century. Hubble's work with Humason helped bolster the then-theory that the universe was expanding—a connection that Hubble ardently denied could be made with any certainty, and published his sentiments with the help of chemist Richard Tolman in the mids. Since then, however, the expanding-universe theory has largely been accepted by scientists worldwide.
Hubble remains one of the world's most famous astronomers. Countless university facilities, a planetarium, an asteroid and a portion of a highway in Missouri also share his name. We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us! Subscribe to the Biography newsletter to receive stories about the people who shaped our world and the stories that shaped their lives.
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But the most astonishing discovery Hubble made resulted from his study of the spectra of 46 galaxies, and in particular of the Doppler velocities of those galaxies relative to our own Milky Way galaxy. What Hubble found was that the farther apart galaxies are from each other, the faster they move away from each other. Based on this observation, Hubble concluded that the universe expands uniformly.
Hubble and his colleague at Mt. Wilson, Milton Humason who started as a mule driver during the construction of the observatory, then janitor, then night assistant , estimated the expansion rate of the universe to be kilometers per second per megaparsec. A megaparsec, or a million parsecs, is a distance equal to about 3. This estimate is called the Hubble Constant, and scientists have been fine-tuning it ever since. The Hubble Space Telescope was launched in , one of its major goals being to pin down the Hubble Constant.
Hubble, the telescope, also helped discover that not only is the universe expanding, the expansion is accelerating. Hubble calculated it to be about 2 billion years ago, but more recent estimates have revised that to 20 billion years ago. An active anti-fascist, Hubble wanted to joined the armed forces again during World War II, but was convinced he could contribute more as a scientist on the homefront. When the inch telescope was completed on Mt.
Palomar, Hubble was given the honor of first use. He died in
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