Skip to main content

Edwin Powell Hubble: Astronomer After Whom NASA Named Its Iconic Telescope

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, launched into low Earth orbit in 1990, has been a vital instrument for exploring the universe for over three decades. Commonly referred to as HST or Hubble, the telescope is celebrated among space enthusiasts for its remarkable contributions to astronomy. However, many may not be aware that the telescope is named after Edwin Powell Hubble, a pioneering American astronomer. Edwin Hubble's groundbreaking work in the early 20th century laid the foundation for modern cosmology, including the discovery of the universe's expansion. His legacy lives on through this iconic instrument, which continues to provide a unique window to the universe.

According to NASA, like the Hubble Space Telescope, Edwin Hubble's discoveries transformed the frontier of scientific knowledge. His work took us beyond the Milky Way and placed us in an ever-expanding universe with a myriad of galaxies beyond our own.

Who was Edwin Powell Hubble?

As per NASA, born on November 20, 1889, in Marshfield, Missouri, Hubble spent his youth honing athletic skills in basketball, football, baseball, track, and boxing, while mentally feeding his curiosity through science fiction novels. Hubble's innate fascination with the world around him foretold a lifetime of exploration. He entered the University of Chicago in 1906 as an undergraduate, earning a bachelor's degree in mathematics and astronomy. He briefly deviated from his path of exploration, largely fuelled by his father's expectations, to study law at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. But his deep longing to pursue a career in the sciences outweighed his father's visions, and Hubble switched gears and obtained a Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of Chicago in 1914, setting his focus on the heavens.

The famous British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking wrote in his book A Brief History of Time that Hubble's "discovery that the Universe is expanding was one of the great intellectual revolutions of the 20th century." 

Seeing the Cosmos Through a New Lens

Destined for the cosmos, Hubble's journey led him to Mount Wilson Observatory in California and the 100-inch Hooker Telescope, the world's largest at the time. Hubble used the 100-inch telescope to observe faint, fuzzy, cloud-like patches of light broadly labelled nebulae. His observations brought these fuzzy patches into focus and, in the process, transformed the field of cosmology.

Hubble used his uniquevantage point to compare galaxies with one another by studying their physical properties. Focusing on the visual appearances of galaxies, Hubble devised what is now the most influential system for classifying them: the Hubble Classification Scheme.

No Nobel Prize for an astronomer

According to esahubble.org, during his life, Hubble had tried to obtain the Nobel Prize, even hiring a publicity agent to promote his cause in the late 1940s, but all the effort was in vain as there was no category for astronomy. Hubble died in 1953 while preparing for several nights of observations, his last great ambition unfulfilled.

He would have been thrilled had he known that the Space Telescope is named after him, so that astronomers can continue to "hope to find something we had not expected", as he said in 1948 during a BBC broadcast in London.



from NDTV News-World-news https://ift.tt/ZxfbqYl

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

It's Official, Kamala Harris Is Democratic Candidate For US Election

US Vice President Kamala Harris effectively secured the Democratic party's presidential nomination Friday, confirming her remarkable rise to party standard bearer in November's showdown against Republican Donald Trump. Kamala Harris was the sole candidate on the ballot for a five-day electronic vote of nearly 4,000 party convention delegates. She will be officially crowned at a Chicago convention later this month. "I am honored to be the presumptive Democratic nominee for President of the United States," Kamala Harris, 59, said on a phone-in to a party celebration after securing enough votes by the second day of the marathon vote. In the two weeks since President Joe Biden ended his reelection bid, Kamala Harris has gained full control of the party. No other Democrats stepped forward to challenge her elevation to the top of the ticket, making her confirmation as the first Black and South Asian woman ever to secure a major party's nomination a formality. The a...

Muhammad Now The Most Popular Name For A Baby In Great Britain, Data Shows

427 years after William Shakespeare wrote it for the first time in the great "tragedy" Romeo & Juliet, England is asking the quintessential question - "What's in a name?" - And this time wondering what significance that question might hold in another 42.7 years. The Department of Statistics in the United Kingdom has revealed in its latest dataset that Muhammad is officially the most popular name for a newborn boy in England and Wales. More than 4,600 babies were registered with that name in 2023 - the highest for a boy. Muhammad was the second-most popular name in 2022 as well. Noah, once the most popular name in UK, came a distant second this year, according to the Office for National Statistics or ONS. But the staff at Great Britain's statistical office has in-fact been observing the trend for a while now. Jotting down the most popular names in the UK, besides other important statistics, it revealed that Muhammad has been among the top 10 names for...

Pak's ISI Fuelling Unrest In Bangladesh, Claims Sheikh Hasina's Son

Sheikh Hasina, who quit as prime minister and fled Bangladesh, will be back in the country as soon as democracy is restored, his son Sajeeb Wazed Joy said on Thursday and blamed Pakistan's intelligence agency, ISI, for fuelling the ongoing unrest in the country. In an interview with PTI, Mr Joy said that although 76-year-old Sheikh Hasina would return to Bangladesh, it has not yet been decided whether she will be back as a "retired or active" politician. He also asserted that the members of the Sheikh Mujib (Sheikh Mujibur Rahman) family will neither abandon its people nor leave the beleaguered Awami League in the lurch. He expressed gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government for protecting his mother and appealed to India to help build international opinion and exert pressure to restore democracy in Bangladesh. "Yes, it is true that I had said she wouldn't return to Bangladesh. But a lot has changed in the last two days following continuous...