Who Is Edwin Hubble Revolutionized Cosmology?

Whether it was spending ÅÇrigid nights beneath the open observatory dome photographing nebulae¡¦(Parshall et al, 1998, p.PG) or forever challenging the concepts that he deemed unsubstantial, Hubble made it his lifelong ambition to ascertain as much information about the universeÃÔ vastness as he possibly could. Of all the monumental discoveries that were credited to HubbleÃÔ perseverance, one of the most important concerned the issue of receding galaxies. By all appearances, Hubble had stumbled onto the fact that ¡¦the cosmos was expanding, flying apart as if it has once been highly concentrated¡¦(Parshall et al, 1998 p.PG). Little did he know at the time, but his discovery would come to represent the big bang theory that has evolved as such a well-known concept within the worldÃÔ contemporary scientific society. Hubble was a US astronomer who studied extragalactic nebulae and demonstrated them to be galaxies like our own. He found the first evidence for the expansion of the Universe, in accordance with the cosmological theories of George Lema and Willem de Sitter, and his work led to an enormous expansion of our perception of the size of the Universe.

This problem wasn't solved until the 1920s, when Edwin Hubble devised the first method of extragalactic distance measurement. His technique relied on stars known as Cepheid variables, whose luminosities can be easily determined by measuring their rates of pulsation. Comparing this luminosity with the stars' observed brightness allowed Hubble to estimate the distance to Cepheid stars in such galaxies, affirming their extragalactic location.

He was different than most astronomers in his time because rather than charting the positions of stars or planets, he was collecting double stars and nebulae.

Nasa and Esa (European Space Agency) designed and built the Hubble telescope. The Hubble telescope was launched in 1990 in a low Earth orbit. Over the years Hubble has provided many images that have given us a better insight into the universe. The Hubble telescope, uses a mirrored - based optical

The only thing standing in Edwin’s way of getting a clean picture of the stars was this thing known as the Earth’s atmosphere, which because of the fluidic gas and dust that make up the atmosphere it often “blurs visible light, causing stars to twinkle and making it difficult to see faint stars.”(Dunbar) As this makes his job virtually impossible, a German scientist comes up with the idea of a telescope in space to not only see farther but also to see clearer, this was a crucial turning point in Hubble’s findings and will eventually lead to the one of the greatest and most recognized theories around the world.

On April 24th of 1990, The Hubble Space Telescope was launched. This was an important event for NASA, because they finally had something to looked further into the space. The Hubble Space Telescope was known as (HST), and it was sent to orbit around our earthly planet. Did you know it took only 97 minutes to orbit around our planet? Hubble Space Telescope helped change the NASA’s thought on the universe because,

This has helped us learn far more about the origins of our Universe and the formation of galaxies from around a billion years after the creation of the Universe, where the galaxies appear to be very shapeless and small, to today where they are larger and formed into spirals or discs. The Hubble Space Telescope has helped pinpoint the age of the Universe to 13.7 billion years22 by studying 31 Cepheid variable stars22, whose fluctuating brightness can be used to calculate their distance thus the expansion and therefore age of the Universe. Knowing the age of the Universe helps astronomers and cosmologists model the Universe and its evolution over its lifetime accurately, which is immensely valuable information to

John Powell Hubble was Edwin Hubble’s father. Edwin and his father contrasted in views of the future. John wanted Edwin to get a degree in law, and that is why Edwin studied law in college. However, John passed away in 1912, and it was because of this that Edwin returned to America (he had been at Queen’s College in England studying law) to start a career in astronomy. His father did not want Edwin to pursue astronomy because he “wouldn’t have let him go through school if he was going to be a thing so outlandish” (Christianson 40). Nevertheless, Edwin still studied astronomy; it was just after his father

In the 1920’s Hubble determined that there were similar Cepheid stars in nearby galaxies like ones in our own Galaxy. With this discovery, he learned that they were faint and thus far away from Earth. He found a way to measure distance by finding common features that we already knew about in our own galaxy. Hubbles’ discoveries were not perfect since his tools and calibrations were not sophisticated, but his ideas helped to implement early forms of determining distance of objects in our Solar System.

It also proves that because of the new things we have found out, we can begin to look even deeper to uncover more of the unknown about our universe. By the Hubble Telescope getting images of the Butterfly Nebula, we can truly see how stars are formed. This helps support the theory of the Nebular Hypothesis because now that we have images of a nebula and how stars form from it, we can prove that that was the way our star, the Sun, was formed. The discovery of dark matter helps us realize how much mass there truly is in the universe and can help us determine the future of the universe. Hubble discovering the age of the universe helps us to date when certain events have occurred and have an understanding of how long it took for it to form. It has also proved the Big Bang Theory because it discovered distant galaxies using redshift and shows how the universe came from a small area and started expanding, which is still continuing today. Overall, Hubble’s discoveries have opened up the door to many more

As stated on nasa.gov, “Hubble has made more than 1.2 million observations since it’s missions began in 1990.” Hubble has also expanded astronomers knowledge about the universe and space as a whole. The most famous observation made by this telescope was that of galaxies beyond our own, Milky Way, and discovering that the universe is much larger than further predicted. Before this telescope, ground based telescopes could only see into our galaxy and could not reach any further. Therefore, it was thought that the Milky Way was the only galaxy included in space and the universe. Due to the fact, Hubble’s telescope, expands and allows for the study across a wider light spectrum, astronomers can see beyond further predicted. Another famous observation, studied by astronomers was that of the study of uncharted territories of the cosmos. As proposed on hubblesite.org, “It became increasingly clear to astronomers that Earth’s atmosphere distorted starlight, which made it difficult to obtain razor-sharp views of celestial objects. The idea of placing a telescope in space, above Earth’s turbulent air, had been kicked around for several years. But scientists pondered how to transport a telescope into space.” That was until, Hubble’s creation that displayed imagery of the cosmos. Once again it had accomplished a feat that had troubled ground based telescopes. In

In 1929, Edwin Hubble used observations of distant galaxies to show that such galaxies were moving away, suggesting the expansion of the universe. He also showed that there is a linear relationship between how far away a galaxy is and how fast it is moving away. This is known as Hubble’s Law. It suggests that the universe has been expanding at a constant rate since the Big Bang (Observatories of the Carnegie Institution for Science). Physicists generally assumed that gravity would slow the expansion of the universe as time went on. Since the Universe is full of matter, and gravity pulls all matter together, eventually gravity would overcome the expansion of the universe and cause it to decelerate. However, no one knew exactly how much the expansion

“The Hubble Space Telescope is a large telescope in space” (NASA,. (2015)). It was launched on April 24th, 1990, from space shuttle Discovery (STS-31), it was deployed into obit on April 25th. The first image taken by the telescope was on May 20th, 1990. It has received several servicing missions since, these dates are Servicing Mission 1: December 1993, Servicing Mission 2: February 1997, Servicing Mission 3A: December 1999, Servicing Mission 3B: February 2002, Servicing Mission 4: May 2009. This Telescope has an altitude of 340 miles travels at a speed of 27 300 kilometres per hour, it takes 95 minutes for Hubble to complete one orbit of Earth. The Hubble telescope has a span of 13.2 meters ( 43.5 ft) in length and a maximum diameter

This observation means that it has taken every galaxy the same amount of time to move from a starting position to its current position. This observation is called "Hubble's Law," named after Edwin Hubble (1889-1953) who discovered this in 1929. Edwin Hubble’s evidence supports the expansion of the universe and suggests that the universe was once compacted. Third, if the universe was insanely hot as the Big Bang suggests, scientists should be able to find some of this heat left over. In 1965, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson discovered a 2.725 degree Kelvin Cosmic Microwave Background radiation which infuses the observable universe. This is thought to be the remnant that scientists were looking for. Finally, the discovery of great amounts of Helium and Hydrogen lead to support the Big Bang Theory. (LaRocco)

Once microwave radiation was discovered, studies improved on the Milky Way Galaxy. Its Doppler Shift can be used to map the motion of gas in it. Also, with radio telescopes, hydrogen gas can now be traced. When the Hubble Space Telescope was introduced in 1990, that made exploring space so much easier and more efficient. That’s how we discovered so much about our universe- including galaxies!