Edwin Powell Hubble
1889–1953, Marshfield, Missouri, United States, San Marino, California, United States
American astronomer who established that spiral nebulae are galaxies beyond the Milky Way and found a relation between galaxy distance and redshift.
Hubble was born in Missouri, studied at the University of Chicago, and then received a Rhodes Scholarship to study law at Oxford; he later returned to astronomy and earned a doctorate at Chicago. At Mount Wilson Observatory he used the 100-inch Hooker Telescope to study spiral nebulae. In 1923–24, identifying Cepheid variable stars in the Andromeda Nebula allowed him to show that it lay beyond the Milky Way and was a separate galaxy.
With Milton Humason, Hubble documented the tendency for more distant galaxies to recede faster, using galaxy distances and redshifts. This work became an observational foundation for an expanding universe. The relation is now often called the Hubble–Lemaître law, recognizing Georges Lemaître's earlier theoretical work.
Workplaces: Mount Wilson Observatory
United States