50 Fun Facts About Edwin Hubble

What did Hubble prove about many objects that had been classified as "nebulae"?

Before his 1924 observations, the prevailing view was that the universe consisted entirely of the Milky Way.

What does Hubble's 1929 finding that galaxies recede faster with distance imply about the universe?

The relation became known as Hubble's law, though Georges Lemaître had proposed it two years earlier.

Which pulsating stars, whose period-luminosity relation Henrietta Leavitt found, did Hubble use to measure distances?

Comparing their apparent brightness to their intrinsic brightness gives their distance, making them a "standard candle".

In which Missouri town, home to a model of the space telescope, was Hubble born in 1889?

The stretch of Interstate 44 through the town is called the Edwin Hubble Highway.

What was the profession of Hubble's father, John Powell Hubble?

The family moved to Wheaton, Illinois, in 1900 and later to Kentucky.

What was the only school subject in which the young Hubble did not earn good grades?

He was better known for athletics than brains, playing baseball, football and running track.

Which college's basketball team did Hubble lead to its first Big Ten Conference title in 1907?

He also won seven first places and a third in a single high-school track meet in 1906.

For which future Nobel-winning physicist did Hubble work as a student laboratory assistant?

He took a Bachelor of Science in mathematics, astronomy and philosophy in 1910.

What did Hubble study at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, keeping a promise to his dying father?

He later added literature and Spanish and took a master's degree, but never had the motivation to practise law.

What did Hubble do for a year at New Albany High School in Indiana after returning from Oxford?

He was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 2017.

Where did Hubble earn his 1921 PhD with a dissertation on faint nebulae?

It gave him access to George Ellery Hale's 40-inch refractor, built in 1897.

What rank did Hubble reach in the US Army's 86th Division during the First World War?

He rushed to finish his PhD to enlist, but the division was broken up for replacements and never saw combat.

Who offered Hubble a staff position at Mount Wilson Observatory in 1919?

The observatory's founder and director had also built the 40-inch refractor Hubble used at Yerkes.

Which instrument, then the world's largest of its kind, was newly completed when Hubble arrived at Mount Wilson?

With it he found Cepheids in the Andromeda and Triangulum nebulae.

Which two nebulae did Hubble's 1924 Cepheid observations prove were separate galaxies?

The finding had been hypothesised as early as 1755 by Immanuel Kant.

Which Harvard astronomer led opposition to Hubble's claim that nebulae lay outside the Milky Way?

Some renowned colleagues simply scoffed, but Hubble published anyway.

In which newspaper were Hubble's findings on the nebulae first published, on November 23, 1924?

He presented them to the American Astronomical Society on New Year's Day 1925; the peer-reviewed paper on Andromeda came in 1929.

What is the astronomer's system for classifying galaxies by their photographic appearance called?

It is still the most commonly used scheme, often drawn as a tuning fork.

By roughly what factor were Hubble's estimated galaxy distances later found to be too small?

He was confused by two kinds of Cepheids and by bright gas clouds mistaken for stars, but the proportions held.

Which two astronomers' redshift measurements did Hubble combine with his distances?

Slipher had provided the first evidence a decade earlier that the nebulae's light was strongly redshifted.

What value did Hubble's measurements on 46 galaxies give for the Hubble constant?

The accepted figures today are around 74 (distance ladder) or 68 (cosmic microwave background); his errors came from distance calibration.

Which Belgian priest-physicist predicted the redshift-distance law two years before Hubble?

A 2011 letter found by Mario Livio showed the priest himself trimmed the English translation of his 1927 paper.

Which word did Hubble use for the galaxies' velocities in a 1931 letter to de Sitter, stressing empiricism?

He left the interpretation to "the very few others who are competent", and to the end favoured keeping open a model with no true expansion.

What did Einstein later call the cosmological constant he'd added to keep the universe static?

When he learned of Hubble's redshifts, he accepted that the expansion his equations predicted must be real.

In which year did Einstein visit Mount Wilson, meet Hubble and say the visit 'changed his mind'?

The visit sealed Einstein's acceptance of an expanding universe.

Which asteroid did Hubble discover on August 30, 1935?

Asteroid 2069 Hubble was later named in his honour, as was a crater on the Moon.

What was the title of Hubble's 1936 book explaining his approach to extragalactic astronomy?

The same year he wrote The Observational Approach to Cosmology.

For how many days did the comet Hubble discovered on 4 August 1937, C/1937 P1, remain observable?

It was last seen on 28 October that year.

What did Hubble surprisingly tell the AAAS in December 1941 that a six-year Mount Wilson survey showed?

His own constant would have made the Big Bang only 2 billion years old, younger than the Earth.

Where did Hubble work as a civilian during the Second World War, heading the External Ballistics Branch?

He developed a high-speed clock camera for studying bombs in flight and received the Legion of Merit in 1946.

Which giant instrument near San Diego was Hubble the first astronomer to use, shortly before his death?

He had been on the Mount Wilson staff continuously since 1919.

Whom did Hubble marry on February 26, 1924?

She donated his papers to the Huntington Library on her death in 1980 and never revealed where he was buried.

Of what did Hubble die in San Marino, California, on September 28, 1953?

He had suffered a heart attack on holiday in Colorado in 1949; no funeral was held.

Which institution in San Marino, California, holds Hubble's correspondence, notebooks and observing logs?

The papers were donated by his widow Grace in 1980.

Why did Hubble never receive the honour from Stockholm that he campaigned for?

Shortly after his death the committee ruled astronomy eligible for the physics prize; the claim he would have won in 1953 is probably false.

Which Royal Astronomical Society honour did Hubble receive in 1940?

He had received the Bruce Medal in 1938 and the Franklin Medal in 1939.

What denomination was the 2008 US postage stamp honouring Hubble in the "American Scientists" sheet?

The sheet, designed by Victor Stabin, also featured Gerty Cori, Linus Pauling and John Bardeen.

What phrase does Hubble's stamp citation use to describe him?

The citation's claim that he would have won the 1953 Nobel Prize is likely false, though he was nominated that year.

Which Brooklyn institution houses the Edwin P. Hubble Planetarium?

A middle school in Wheaton, Illinois, where he lived from age 11, is also named for him.

What is Creation's Birthday, written by Cornell physicist Hasan Padamsee?

Hubble was also inducted into the Hall of Famous Missourians in 2003.

Which 18th-century philosopher hypothesised as early as 1755 that the nebulae were separate 'island' systems?

The idea appeared in his General History of Nature and Theory of the Heavens.

Which university did Hubble spend a year at after the First World War, renewing his astronomy studies?

He then took up Hale's offer at Mount Wilson in 1919.

To which Illinois town did Hubble's family move in 1900, where a middle school bears his name?

He lived there from age 11, better known then for athletics than for schoolwork.

How many first places did Hubble win at a single high-school track meet in 1906?

He also took a third place that day, and played baseball, football and basketball.

In 1909 Hubble's father moved the family from Chicago to a small town in which state?

They settled first in Shelbyville and then nearby Louisville; his father died in the winter of 1913 while Edwin was in England.

Where was Hubble on vacation when he suffered a heart attack in July 1949?

His wife cared for him and he continued working on a modified diet and schedule until his death in 1953.

What is unusual about Hubble's final resting place?

No funeral was held for him after his death in San Marino, California.

Which journal reported in 2011 that Hubble may have influenced cuts to the translation of Lemaître's paper?

Historians quoted were sceptical, though Sidney van den Bergh suggested the omissions might still have been deliberate.

Which honour did Hubble receive in 1924, the earliest of his major awards?

The Bruce Medal followed in 1938 and the Franklin Medal in 1939.

The Edwin Hubble Highway is a stretch of which numbered US highway through his birthplace?

The road runs through Marshfield, Missouri, which also displays a model of the space telescope.