Edwin Hubble
Edwin Powell Hubble is known to many today as being the namesake of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. An acclaimed astronomer and astrophysicist, Hubble is credited with having shown that recessional velocity of a galaxy increases with its distance from Earth by finding a constant relationship between redshift and distance. This discovery eventually led to the conclusion that the universe is expanding and is known as Hubble’s Law. Hubble was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1940, just five years after his visit to Wesleyan in 1935!
The Facts
OccupationAstrophysicist
Date & Place of BirthNovember 20, 1889 in Marshfield, Missouri
Date & Place of DeathSeptember 28, 1953, San Marino, California
Alma MaterUniversity of Chicago (B.Sc),
University of Oxford (J.D.)
Mount Wilson Observatory
Date of Wesleyan VisitOctober 22, 1935 (age 45 at time of visit)