Q 01/05

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

A) They were clouds of dust inside the Milky Way

B) They were galaxies beyond the Milky Way

C) They were dying stars

D) They were reflections of the Sun

Answer · why

B) They were galaxies beyond the Milky Way

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

Q 02/05

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

A) It is infinitely old

B) It is rotating

C) It is contracting

D) It is expanding

Answer · why

D) It is expanding

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

Q 03/05

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

A) White dwarf stars

B) Millisecond pulsars

C) Cepheid variables

D) Red giant stars

Answer · why

C) Cepheid variables

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

Q 04/05

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

A) Hannibal

B) Marshfield

C) Joplin

D) Springfield

Answer · why

B) Marshfield

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

Q 05/05

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

A) Insurance executive

B) Country doctor

C) Baptist minister

D) Tobacco farmer

Answer · why

A) Insurance executive

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