over the last century astronomers have discovered many new and mysterious
cosmic objects such as quasars black holes gamma-ray bursts burn and distant
exoplanets recent discoveries may be impressive but in just a few remarkable
years in the 1920s one man single-handedly changed our perception
of our place in the universe his name was dr. Edwin Powell Hubble
born in Missouri in 1889 Edwin Powell Hubble developed an early passion for
astronomy after receiving his first telescope when he was just 8 years old
in 1917 whilst working on his doctorate Hubble received a life-changing job
offer from George Ellery Hale founder of the Mount Wilson Observatory in
California but the opportunity came at a bad time the United States had just
entered World War one and Hubble enlisted in the military in 1919 major
Hubble returned from the war and immediately traveled to the Mount Wilson
Observatory still in uniform he arrived and announced that he was ready to start
observing
in 1923 Hubble made his first important discovery using the most advanced
technology of the time the 2 point 5 meter
hooker telescope measuring the distance to pulsating stars known as Cepheid
variables he discovered that they reside in galaxies outside our own at the time
the prevailing view was that the universe consisted only of the Milky Way
galaxy Hubble's discovery but our galaxy is just one of many forever changed the
way we view our place in the universe
following this groundbreaking discovery Hubble began to sort and classify the
galaxies he discovered he arranged them according to their visual appearance
into spirals ellipticals lenticular x' and those with an irregular appearance
this became known as the Hubble sequence and it is still the most popular system
for classifying galaxies
hubble's greatest achievement came in 1929 when he determined that the light
we received from galaxies is redder the further away they are from us from this
he was able to deduce that the further away of galaxy is the faster it recedes
named Hubble's law the observational discovery of this relationship overturns
the conventional view of a static universe and demonstrated that the
universe itself was expanding providing the first observational evidence for the
big bang fairy
Hubble spent the later part of his career campaigning for astronomy to be
recognized as an area of physics by the Nobel Prize Committee the committee
finally made astronomical work eligible for the physics prize in 1953 but Hubble
was never to know as he had died just a few months earlier
had the decision come sooner Hubble may well have lived to receive one
thirty years after Edwin Hubble's death NASA and the European Space Agency
christened their new Space Telescope after Edwin Hubble Hubble was the
obvious choice when naming a new Observatory that would revolutionize the
field of astronomy Edwin Hubble changed our perception of the universe and our
place within it and his spirit of discovery lives on today through the
Hubble Space Telescope
you
now that you've caught up with Hubble make sure to get the latest from the
ground too the esocast highlights the best of the
european southern observatory and its powerful telescopes that observe from
high in the chilean andes at the southern hemisphere's best known sites
for astronomical observations
at 1:00 all I have
I guess you're about the only person around that doesn't have TV coverage of
the food
Oh
on fire please