In 1990, 101 years after Hubble's birth, NASA launched the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit around Earth. Since the Nobel Prize cannot be awarded posthumously, Hubble was ineligible. Unfortunately, it didn't happen until 1953, the year Hubble died. Hubble labored in vain for a change that would allow astronomers such as himself to be recognized. During his lifetime, astronomy was considered a field of physics for the world-renowned Nobel Prize. But he never received the Nobel Prize, despite his role in improving the existing understanding of the universe. Though Hubble is most well known for these major discoveries, he also made a number of other contributions to the field of astronomy, and received numerous awards. After Hubble had shown the universe was, in fact, expanding, Einstein visited him at Mount Wilson, calling his decision to change the equations, "the greatest blunder of my life." A lifetime contribution But Einstein removed the equations because they contradicted the evidence of the day. Over a decade before Hubble published his work, renowned scientist Albert Einstein's theory of General Relativity called for an expanding universe. According to the calculation, the universe is expanding at a constant rate, known as the Hubble constant. The calculation to determine the rate at which the universe is expanding is known as Hubble's law, though it was originally proposed by Georges Lemaître in 1927. Astronomers rushed to test his calculations on other galaxies, and found that some were moving as quickly as 90 million mph (40,000 kilometers per second) in the opposite direction. Instead, virtually every galaxy seems to be rushing away from Earth (the Andromeda Galaxy is instead rushing toward us and will collide with the Milky Way in about 5 billion years). In studying the various galaxies, Hubble was able to determine that they did not sit stationary in space. Hubble originally thought that galaxies evolved from ellipticals to spirals, but scientists now know that each galaxy's shape is determined in its early life. Known as the “tuning fork” diagram (due to its resemblance to that musical piece), the method organizes ellipticals by their ellipticity (how stretched out they are from a perfect circle), while spirals and barred spirals become less tightly wound as they progress. Hubble's clear method of organizing the various classes focuses on three galactic types: ellipticals, spiral and barred spirals, and irregulars. At the time, a descriptive system existed, and two other systems were proposed soon after, but they were insufficient. He died in 1953, with that ambition unfulfilled, but he would have been thrilled to know that the first space telescope is named after him.Around the same time, Hubble published a standard classification system to use for the galaxies. But all the effort was in vain because there was no category for astronomy. Four times as powerful as the Hooker, the Hale would be the largest telescope on Earth for decades.ĭuring his life, Hubble tried to obtain a Nobel Prize, even hiring a publicity agent in the late 1940s to promote his cause. In 1949, he was honoured by being allowed the first use of the instrument. Hubble’s last significant contribution to astronomy was playing a central role in the design and construction of the Hale 200-inch Telescope on Palomar Mountain.
Now Hubble had demonstrated that Einstein had been right in the first place. More than a decade earlier, Einstein himself had bowed to the observational wisdom of the day and corrected his equations, which had originally predicted an expanding Universe. It was a revelation and overturned the conventional view of a static Universe by showing that the Universe itself was expanding. This relationship is now known as Hubble's Law. In 1929 he made a startling find: most galaxies seemed to be receding from us with velocities that increased in proportion to their distance from us. He began to study and classify all the known nebulae. This discovery was a breakthrough, but Hubble's greatest moment was yet to come. Thus it was a galaxy in its own right, containing billions of stars. It showed Hubble that Andromeda was far away – a million light-years at least – and so was outside the Milky Way. After careful examination of photographic plates of the same area taken previously by other astronomers, he realised that it was a particular kind of variable star, known as a Cepheid, which could be used to measure distance. In October 1923, using the Hooker telescope, Hubble spotted what he first thought was a nova star flaring up dramatically in the Andromeda 'nebula'.
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