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Edwin Powell Hubble
(1889 – 1953)
Was an American astronomer. He profoundly changed astronomers' understanding of the nature of the universe by demonstrating the existence of other galaxies besides the Milky Way. He also discovered that the degree of redshift observed in light coming from a galaxy increased in proportion to the distance of that galaxy from the Milky Way. This became known as Hubble's law, and would help establish that the universe is expanding.
(1889 – 1953)
Was an American astronomer. He profoundly changed astronomers' understanding of the nature of the universe by demonstrating the existence of other galaxies besides the Milky Way. He also discovered that the degree of redshift observed in light coming from a galaxy increased in proportion to the distance of that galaxy from the Milky Way. This became known as Hubble's law, and would help establish that the universe is expanding.
He was born to an insurance executive in Marshfield, Missouri and moved to Wheaton, Illinois in 1889. In his younger days he was noted more for his athletic prowess than his intellectual abilities, although he did earn good grades in every subject except for spelling. He won seven first places and a third place in a single high school track meet in 1906. That year he also set a state record for high jump in Illinois.
His studies at the University of Chicago concentrated on mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy which led to a BS degree in 1910. Hubble also became a member of the Kappa Sigma Fraternity and in 1948 was named Kappa Sigma "Man of the Year". He spent the next three years as one of Oxford's first Rhodes Scholars, where he originally studied jurisprudence, before switching his major to Spanish and receiving the MA degree, after which he returned to the United States. Some of his British mannerisms and dress stayed with him all his life, occasionally irritating his American colleagues.
Returning to the United States he worked as a high school teacher and a basketball coach at New Albany High School in New Albany, Indiana (near Louisville), and was a member of the Kentucky bar, although he reportedly never actually practiced law in Kentucky. He served in World War I and quickly advanced to the rank of major. He returned to astronomy at the Yerkes Observatory of the University of Chicago, where he earned a PhD in 1917 with a dissertation entitled "Photographic Investigations of Faint Nebulae".
In 1919 Hubble was offered a staff position by George Ellery Hale, the founder and director of Carnegie Institution's Mount Wilson Observatory, near Pasadena, California, where he remained until his death. He also served in the US Army at the Aberdeen Proving Ground during World War II. For his work there he received the Legion of Merit. Shortly before his death, Palomar's 200-inch Hale Telescope was completed; Hubble was the first to use it. Hubble continued his researches at the Mount Wilson and Palomar Observatories, where he remained active until his death.
Hubble died of a cerebral thrombosis on September 28, 1953, in San Marino, California. No funeral was held and his wife, Grace, did not reveal what happened to his body .
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