We’ve talked about all the amazing contributions the Hubble Space Telescope has brought to the understanding of modern day physics and astronomy. Today, let’s take a look at the man this telescope was so aptly named for, and who realized there was more to our universe than just our Milky Way galaxy: American astronomer Edwin Hubble, born in 1889.
It wasn’t so obvious from the get-go that Edwin Hubble would become a famous astronomer. For one thing, his father wanted him to become a lawyer, a track that Hubble dutifully followed for a time before turning back to his passion for astronomy.
After Hubble went back to earn his doctorate, the United States launched into the war that had been consuming Europe since 1914. Hubble finished his thesis, sat for his oral exams and joined the infantry, sending his regrets to the Mount Wilson Observatory, which had offered him a place after graduation.
Two years later, Hubble returned from war and went straight to California without bothering to change out of his uniform. Mount Wilson was delighted to have him, and with the recent installation of the Hooker Telescope, which at 100 inches was the most powerful telescope on the planet at the time, Hubble was no doubt delighted to be there.
Being an astronomer in the early 1900s was no picnic. It meant long, cold nights at the telescope, staring at the stars and comparing photos of the same stars from previous nights.
But all that time at the scope paid off for Hubble when he noticed a change in brightness from what astronomers believed to be the Andromeda nebula.
He was then able to measure the distance to Andromeda for the first time, clocking it far outside our own galaxy, which was all astronomers at the time believed the universe contained. In that moment, Hubble understood that Andromeda was a galaxy in its own right, and the known universe explosively broadened.
Hubble’s second major contribution to the field backed up some old equations of everyone’s favorite hair model, Albert Einstein. Einstein’s math had originally predicted that the universe was expanding, an idea that was pooh-poohed by the other physicists of the day, who believed the universe was static. Einstein gave in to peer pressure and quietly altered his formulas, but Hubble’s observations called for a re-evaluation.
This observation, that all galaxies appear to be receding from us at varying speeds based on their distance from us, is known as Hubble’s Law.
My favorite analogy to demonstrate this concept is to imagine a loaf of raisin bread rising in the oven, and then to imagine you’re a raisin in that bread. From your perspective, regardless of where in the loaf you might reside, all the other raisins are moving away from you, and the raisins furthest away from you are moving faster away than those closest.
While the space telescope is the most famous object named after Hubble, others also bear his name, including an asteroid, a crater on the moon and a high school planetarium in New York.
LOOKING UP THIS WEEK – At dusk, you’ll see Jupiter in the east and a very bright Venus in the west. As Venus sets, Saturn rises, followed a couple of hours later by a reddish Mars. The June solstice is today, marking the beginning of summer in the northern hemisphere. The moon is currently a waxing crescent and will be first quarter on Wednesday.
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