Stargazer

Every 97 minutes, the Hubble Space Telescope circles the earth 370 miles above our heads, attempting to measure that “immeasurable greatness.” Designed to see 10 times more clearly into the void than Earth-based equipment, the HST can see objects one-billionth as bright as the human eye can see. By probing the dim boundariesof the universe, the satellite observatory is carrying on the work of its namesake, Edwin Powell Hubble.

Considered by some the greatest astronomer of the last 400 years, Hubble, whose 20th-century stargazing surpassed that of 17th-century Galileo (1564 – 1642), revolutionized our understanding of the universe and man’s place in it. His discoveries rivaled in importance those of visionary 16th-century Copernicus (1473 – 1543), whose assertion that Earth and the planets revolved around the sun instead of the other way around shook man’s world view. How did Hubble, a boy from a middle-class suburb of Chicago, rise to prominence as one of history’s most acclaimed astronomers? He had a vision of a universe beyond our galaxy.

In his quest to prove that vision correct, he pursued it relentlessly. Full of imagination and ambition, he refused to believe there were limits to what he could discover. While the world slept, Hubble set his sights on the night sky and meticulously measured and mapped the cosmos. He dreamed big and acted upon his dreams, achieving greatness in his field and lasting recognition for centuries to come. Although Edwin Hubble could be petty and mean at times, even going so far as to hire a press agent to help get him nominated for the prestigious Noble Prize (at the time, Nobel Prizes were not awarded to astronomers, and Hubble hoped press coverage would convince the selection committee to include astronomers in the same category as physicists), his story provides a wonderful lesson in the value of trusting your imagination and applying persistent work to achieve your goals.

Growing up
Born in Marshfield, MO, in 1889, Edwin Hubble was a dreamer from a young age. Gale E. Christianson writes in Edwin Hubble: Mariner of the Nebulae that Hubble preferred adventure and exploration books such as Alice in Wonderland, King Solomon’s Mines, and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Hubble developed an interest in space exploration as early as age fourteen, when he devoured books on astronomy while recovering in bed from a ruptured appendix.

John Hubble, Edwin’s father, a middle-class lawyer employed as an insurance executive, moved the family to Wheaton, IL, where Edwin attended school. A gifted athlete and intensely competitive, the young Hubble excelled in sports. He set the Illinois state high school high-jump record and lettered in track, boxing and basketball at the University of Chicago. His boxing prowess was so well known that a sports promoter begged Hubble to train for a fight with Jack Johnson, the world heavyweight champion. Instead, Hubble concentrated on his studies and earned a BS degree in mathematics and astronomy.

A legal detour
While astronomy was Hubble’s first love, John Hubble preferred that his son study law. Edwin submitted to this wish and accepted the prestigious Rhodes scholarship to study at Oxford. Winning the scholarship demonstrated Edwin’s foresight and tenacity in achieving his goals. Helen Hubble Lane, Edwin’s sister, told biographer Gale Christianson that Hubble had set his sights on the scholarship early in high school and had arranged his studies accordingly.

Knowing his father wouldn’t permit him to pursue astronomy, Edwin waited patiently. Betsy Hubble, another of Edwin’s sisters, reported that he had “only one thought in his mind, and he wasn’t going to let anyone else bother that.” During his years at Oxford, Hubble fed his passion for astronomy by reading the writings by and about his heroes: Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton and Herschel.

In 1913, just before Hubble returned from England, his father died. Within a year of returning from Oxford, Edwin turned to his passion, astronomy. With his keen intellect, Hubble could have made much more money practicing law, but instead followed his heart. Later, Edwin said of the switch: “I knew that even if I were second-rate or third-rate, it was astronomy that mattered.”

Hubble returned to the University of Chicago in 1914 for work leading to his doctoral degree in astronomy. His exemplary work (he graduated magna cum laude) attracted the attention of George Ellery Hale, the famous astronomer and director of the Mount Wilson Observatory. Hale offered Hubble a position at the observatory in 1917. The offer was phenomenal for a young astronomer, but World War I had broken out and Hubble felt duty-bound to serve. He telegraphed Hale, “Regret cannot accept your invitation. Am off to the war.”

The view from Mount Wilson
Hubble ascended to the rank of Major in the U.S. Army and served in France until returning to the United States in 1919. He went to work immediately as a staff astronomer at Mount Wilson Observatory in Pasadena, CA. Despite being a 29-year-old neophyte, Hubble showed his competitive nature soon after joining the observatory staff in a rivalry with Harlow Shapley, one of the world’s leading explorers of the Milky Way. Shapley did not believe suggestions dating from William Herschel in the 18th century that nebulae, the innumerable faint clusters of stars in the sky, could be other galaxies. He believed that the Milky Way was the entire universe.

Hubble was unconvinced and held to the argument made in his doctoral dissertation: The discovery of the nature of nebulae awaited the development of more powerful telescopes.

Hubble had such a tool in the observatory’s 100-inch Hooker Telescope, the world’s largest. Perched 5,714 feet above sea level and well above smog and air pollution, the Hooker gave Hubble exceptional views of the expanse of space. The observatory dome would open, letting in the cool night air, and Hubble would sit at the eyepiece, puffing a pipe and patiently turning the giant eye toward faint nebulae. He would photograph and catalogue the sky and come down from Mount Wilson in the mornings to study his photographic plates.

In October 1923, Hubble successfully measured the distance to the Andromeda nebula as a hundred thousand times further away than the nearest stars – well outside the Milky Way. Hubble had proved the existence of a separate galaxy, perhaps the size of our own Milky Way, with millions of stars. Suddenly the universe was infinitely larger, and man’s place in it, much smaller.

Not above small-mindedness, Hubble, who was never known as a team player, took pleasure in sending a note to Shapley, then at Harvard, gloating in the discovery. “Here is the letter that has destroyed my universe,” Shapley said to a colleague.

A wide-eyed dreamer
Edwin Hubble was a tireless worker with an insatiable appetite for knowledge. According to his wife, Grace, the astronomer referred to his research as a “dream” and “an adventure.” Grace Hubble recalled the first description she’d been given of her future husband by William H. Wright, astronomer at the Lick Observatory: “He is a hard worker, he wants to find out about the universe; that shows how young he is.” Hubble maintained that exuberance throughout his career, several times passing up much more lucrative management posts. When offered the presidency of the Carnegie Institute of Technology, Hubble declined, stating, “I am still possessed with a driving passion for research.”

Einstein stands corrected
Hubble’s relentless navigation of the sky turned up numerous discoveries. From his seat at the Hooker Telescope, he developed a classification system for galaxies still used today. Hubble also measured light emitted from galaxies to determine their distances from earth and speeds of travel and made the startling discovery that all galaxies are receding. He discovered that the farther a galaxy is from Earth, the faster it appears to be moving away. Hubble had stumbled upon the basis of the Big Bang Theory: that we live in an expanding universe.

That notion was in direct contrast to the prevailing thought of the universe as static. Even the world’s smartest man, Albert Einstein, had proposed his theory of general relativity based on a universe that neither expanded nor contracted. In 1931, Einstein visited Mount Wilson and acknowledged his mistake to Hubble and the world. Calling Hubble’s work “beautiful,” Einstein reworked his theory of relativity to account for the astronomer’s discovery. Every major paper in the country carried the story, and Hubble’s fame soared.

Edwin and Grace lived a glamorous life, socializing with the rich and famous, including Charlie Chaplin, Aldous Huxley, William Randolph Hearst, Helen Hayes and Walt Disney. His much photographed, pipe-smoking visage appeared regularly in newspaper stories covering addresses he made or awards he won. Among the accolades: At age 38, Hubble became the youngest member elected to the National Academy of Sciences; he was the first Rhodes Scholar to receive an honorary degree from Oxford; and he won the prestigious Barnard Medal in 1935. Awarded only once every five years by the National Academy of Sciences, the Barnard Medal had previously been awarded only to Nobel Prize winners.

A rose-colored lens
In spite of his success, Hubble could be petty, and he harbored several rivalries in addition to the one with Harlow Shapley. When one such adversary, Dutch astronomer Adriaan van Maanen, arrived for dinner at the Mount Wilson Observatory, he found that Hubble had switched name places and taken his seat at the head of the table. (Van Maanen was scheduled to use the Hooker Telescope that evening and was thereby entitled to the place of honor.) Van Maanen let the episode pass.

Christianson writes that Hubble “abhorred challenges to his scientific thinking and was ever fearful that some rival would attempt to steal his thunder.” Such paranoia helped fuel his drive and undoubtedly contributed to his accomplishments.

At other times Hubble displayed humility, his ego tamed perhaps by the awesomeness of his work. “The whole is so much bigger than I am, and I can’t understand it; so I just trust myself to it and forget about it,” he once remarked.

Hubble’s legacy
Late in his career, Hubble’s restless search for stellar knowledge outstripped the capabilities of the Hooker Telescope, and he had to await completion of the 200-inch Hale Telescope to make new discoveries. Hubble assisted in the design of the colossal telescope atop Mount Palomar and was the first astronomer to use it. In a BBC broadcast Hubble said, “With the 200-inch, we may grasp what now we can scarcely brush with our fingertips.” When asked what he expected to find, Hubble replied, “We hope to find something we hadn’t expected.”

Poor health kept Hubble from extensive work with the Hale Telescope. Instead, he traveled with Grace, lectured and accepted a steady stream of awards and appointments. He died in 1953 at age 63.Just how influential was Hubble’s work? In the Dictionary of Scientific Biography, scientist G.J. Whitrow wrote that Hubble had made as drastic a change in man’s understanding of the universe as Copernicus had 400 years before. Hubble’s impact on the world of science is immeasurable, but if you want to try to gauge it, pick up a modern astronomy textbook. The index will include Hubble’s zone of avoidance, the Hubble galaxy type, the Hubble sequence, the Hubble luminosity laws, the Hubble constant, Hubble time, the Hubble diagram, the Hubble redshift-distance relation, the Hubble radius for the universe, and now the Hubble Space Telescope.

NASA’s naming its orbiting telescope after Hubble is a fitting tribute. Like the man, the telescope is working tirelessly to push the bounds of space further. In his honor, the space eye is continuing Hubble’s dream of scanning the heavens, finding the previously unimaginable and bringing it back to those of us bound to planet Earth.