Edwin Hubble

 NAME Edwin Powell Hubble. He was often referred to by colleagues as "The Major" due to his military service and commanding presence.

WHAT FAMOUS FOR Edwin Hubble was a revolutionary American astronomer who fundamentally changed our understanding of the cosmos. He is best known for confirming that the universe extends far beyond the Milky Way by proving that "nebulae" like Andromeda were actually separate galaxies. He also formulated Hubble's Law, which provides the observational basis for the expanding universe and the Big Bang theory. The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) was named in his honor. (1) (2) (3)

BIRTH Born November 20, 1889, in Marshfield, Missouri, USA. 

FAMILY BACKGROUND Hubble was the third of eight children, not all of whom survived childhood. His father, John Powell Hubble, held a law degree but worked as an insurance executive — a man described as strict, demanding, and Baptist in his faith, though with a fondness for pipes and cigars. John Hubble would blow smoke rings for the entertainment of his children. 

His mother was Virginia Lee James. 

The family was financially prosperous and mobile, living in well-staffed homes in the suburbs of Chicago and later Louisville. 

Edwin's grandfather was an enthusiastic amateur astronomer who introduced the young Edwin to telescope-gazing when he was around seven years old. (4)

CHILDHOOD The family relocated from Marshfield to Wheaton, Illinois, before Hubble's first birthday. 

In his early years he was noted more for athletic prowess than intellectual achievement, though his grades were consistently high in almost every subject — the exception being spelling. 

As a boy he was captivated by the adventure novels of Jules Verne and H. Rider Haggard. 

His grandfather's telescope made such an impression on him that, aged around seven, he reportedly asked to stay up all night looking at the heavens rather than have an eighth birthday party. 

The young Hubble earned money during school holidays by delivering morning newspapers in Wheaton. (2)

EDUCATION Hubble graduated from Wheaton High School in 1906 with a scholarship to the University of Chicago, where he studied mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy, graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1910. He also served as a student laboratory assistant to physicist Robert Millikan, a future Nobel Prize winner, and became a member of Kappa Sigma fraternity. 

He won a Rhodes Scholarship and spent three years at The Queen's College, Oxford, studying jurisprudence in deference to his dying father's wishes, also adding studies in literature and Spanish and earning a master's degree. 

After his father's death, he returned to the United States and taught Spanish and physics at New Albany High School, Indiana, also coaching the boys' basketball team, before returning to the University of Chicago to pursue graduate astronomy studies at Yerkes Observatory, earning his Ph.D. in 1917 (later revised to 1921 in some accounts) with a dissertation titled Photographic Investigations of Faint Nebulae. (2)

CAREER RECORD 1913 Following his return from Oxford, Hubble was admitted to the bar and practiced law in Louisville, Kentucky, for about a year to fulfill his promise to his dying father.

1914 He returned to the University of Chicago’s Yerkes Observatory to begin his doctoral work in astronomy.

1919 After serving in the military, Hubble was offered a position at the Mount Wilson Observatory in California by George Ellery Hale. He remained there for the rest of his career, using the 100-inch Hooker Telescope, then the largest in the world.

1924 On November 23, 1924, Hubble's discovery that the Andromeda nebula was actually an "island universe" (a separate galaxy) was first published in the New York Times.

1929 Hubble published his observations relating the distance of galaxies to their redshift, proving the universe is expanding.

1942 During World War II, Hubble left the observatory to serve as Head of Exterior Ballistics at the Aberdeen Proving Ground.

APPEARANCE Hubble was a tall, powerfully built man, standing six feet two inches in height. A dedicated athlete throughout his youth and early career, he possessed a physique to match — broad-shouldered and imposing. 

He was rarely without his pipe, and portraits from the Huntington Library show him habitually seated with a billiard pipe in hand. 

After Oxford, he adopted a cane and a long black English cape as part of his sartorial identity. (2) (4)

Studio Portrait of Edwin Powell Hubble 1931

FASHION Oxford transformed Hubble's dress sense entirely. He returned from England as what one observer called a confirmed Anglophile, adopting tweeds, plus-fours, knickers, and British pipes, complete with whimsical turns of phrase. He affected an English manner of dress for the remainder of his life, ordering tobacco from the London Pipe Shop of Los Angeles. His biographer Gale E. Christianson noted that he carried his style so far that his California acquaintances were sometimes bemused. (4)

CHARACTER Hubble has been described as intensely ambitious, driven, and focused, yet capable of great charm in social settings. His biographer noted that after returning from Oxford he was prone to exaggerating his earlier sporting achievements and embellishing his personal history. 

He could be stubborn in his scientific convictions — notably resisting the full interpretation of his own observational data as evidence for an expanding universe, insisting the evidence was not yet conclusive. 

Hubble was described as a dutiful son who set aside his true passion for astronomy to honour his father's dying wish that he study law. (2)

SPEAKING VOICE After three years at Oxford, Hubble returned to the United States speaking with what contemporaries described as an adopted British accent, which he retained for the rest of his life. He became so thoroughly anglicised in speech and manner that he was sometimes derided as an affectation. He was known for "whimsical turns of phrase that even Bertie Wooster might have hesitated to use," as his biographer put it. (2) 

SENSE OF HUMOUR  Hubble had a wry wit. He was fond of party tricks — one favourite being to strike a wooden match, flip it into the air, catch it on its wooden end, and light his pipe with it. His wife Grace noted his party trick delighted Hollywood guests. 

When Grace's height came up in conversation and he correctly estimated it at five feet four inches, his explanation was simply: "I was a high jumper, my dear." (4) (5)

RELATIONSHIPS In 1920, Hubble met Grace Burke at Mount Wilson Observatory. She was married at the time, but was widowed in 1921 when her first husband, Earl Leib, a geologist, died in a mine accident. After a discreet courtship, Edwin and Grace married on February 26, 1924, in a private ceremony at her family home. They had no children. 

Grace, a Stanford graduate described as a brilliant woman with a keen wit, devoted herself entirely to his career and wellbeing, acting as his first reader and editor and nursing him through his heart attack in 1949. Their marriage lasted until his death in 1953. (6) (7)

MONEY AND FAME Hubble's discoveries made him one of the most celebrated scientists of his era. By the late 1940s he was famous enough to appear on the front cover of Time magazine in 1948. 

His home in San Marino became a gathering place for film stars, intellectuals, and scientists; his circle included novelist Aldous Huxley and his wife Maria, as well as many of Hollywood's luminaries. 

He spent much of the latter part of his career lobbying — ultimately without success in his own lifetime — to have astronomy classified as a branch of physics, largely in hopes of becoming eligible for the Nobel Prize. (2) 

FOOD AND DRINK Hubble was a fan of traditional English tea and was often seen with his pipe. He enjoyed formal dinners, particularly during his time in California where he socialized with movie stars like Charlie Chaplin.

His San Marino home was described as "a constant party scene with hordes of visiting movie stars." (4)

MUSIC AND ARTS Hubble was part of a glamorous social world in California in the 1930s and 1940s, mixing regularly with artists, writers, and movie stars. 

LITERATURE As a boy, Hubble's favourite reading was the adventure novels of Jules Verne and H. Rider Haggard. In later life, book collecting became his principal hobby, with a particular focus on the history of science.

He became a trustee of the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, which holds his papers, photographs, notebooks, and observing logbooks. 

Hubble was the author of two notable works: The Realm of the Nebulae (1936) and The Observational Approach to Cosmology (1937). (2)

NATURE Hubble loved the outdoors. He and Grace regularly took vacations in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and went fishing and horseback riding in Colorado. Grace's journals from these trips were described as vivid and literary in their descriptions of the natural world. (6)

PETS Hubble's most celebrated companion was a black, part-Persian cat named Nicolas Copernicus. In 1946, Edwin and Grace brought home a kitten, and Hubble immediately announced: "Its name is Nicolas Copernicus." Nicolas is extensively referenced in Grace's diaries and features in numerous photographs held at the Huntington Library. 

The cat grew into what Grace described as a "part-Persian leviathan."  He was known to sprawl across Edwin's desk in his study — "over as many pages as he could cover," as Grace noted in her diary. When asked about this habit, Hubble's response was simply: "He is helping me." Nicolas was particularly fond of lying across astronomical charts. 

Image by Gemini

Hubble was devoted to the cat's comfort and independence. He habitually referred to his San Marino home as "Nicolas' estate." ( He installed a cat door at the San Marino home, declaring: "All cats should have one — it is necessary for their self-respect"). 

Pipe cleaners — scattered liberally around the house — were Nicolas's favourite toy. 

The cat slept at the foot of the master bed every night and repaid the household with gifts of lizards, live birds, dead mice, and dragonflies. (8) (9)

HOBBIES AND SPORTS Sport dominated Hubble's early life. At Wheaton High School he won seven first places and a third place in a single track and field meet in 1906, set a state record in the high jump, and played baseball, football, and basketball. 

At university he was also a heavyweight boxer. He led the University of Chicago's basketball team to their first Big Ten Conference title in 1907, and after Oxford briefly coached a high school basketball team. 

His lifelong hobby was book collecting, particularly works on the history of science. He was also a keen pipe smoker, a trait inherited from his father, and was rarely seen without a pipe. (2) 

DISCOVERIES Before Edwin Hubble came along, astronomers had what might politely be called a cosmological parochialism problem. They believed the entire universe consisted of our home galaxy, the Milky Way—a bit like assuming your village is the whole of civilisation because you’ve never taken the bus to the next town. Those faint smudges in the sky—“nebulae”—were thought to be nothing more than local wisps of gas and dust, decorative but ultimately unambitious.

Hubble, however, had access to the Hooker Telescope at Mount Wilson Observatory, which in the 1920s was the scientific equivalent of upgrading from opera glasses to something capable of spotting a flea blinking at twenty paces. Armed with this, he set about resolving what was known, with admirable understatement, as “The Great Debate.”

The Hooker Telescope by Andrew Dunn 

On the night of October 5, 1923, while examining the Andromeda Galaxy—then still clinging to its more modest title of “nebula”—Hubble noticed what he thought were three novae. This would have been mildly interesting. But on digging through old photographic plates, he realised one of these stars wasn’t exploding at all—it was pulsing. This made it a Cepheid variable, a class of star whose rhythmic brightening and dimming conveniently reveals how far away it is.

At this point, Hubble did something delightfully human. He crossed out his original “N” (for nova) and scribbled “VAR!” in red ink. One imagines a small, satisfied nod—history rarely records whether he allowed himself a cup of tea.

Using a method pioneered by Henrietta Swan Leavitt, he calculated that Andromeda was about 900,000 light-years away. This was awkward, because the Milky Way was nowhere near that large. In one stroke, the universe had gone from cosy to cavernous.

Hubble didn’t stop there. He found similar stars in other “nebulae,” including the Triangulum Galaxy, and concluded that the universe was populated by not one galaxy, but millions. It was rather like discovering that every faint light on the horizon is not a candle, but an entire city.

He then did what any orderly-minded astronomer might do when faced with a suddenly overcrowded universe: he tidied it up. The Hubble Sequence sorted galaxies into ellipticals, spirals, barred spirals, and irregulars—categories that sound reassuringly manageable given that each contains billions of stars.

But his most consequential discovery came in 1929. By combining his own distance measurements with the redshift data of Vesto Slipher and work with Milton Humason, Hubble found that galaxies are not merely sitting about looking decorative—they are rushing away from us, and the farther they are, the faster they go. This became Hubble's Law, a finding that transformed the universe from a static arrangement into something far more dynamic and, frankly, a bit excitable.

When Albert Einstein visited Mount Wilson in 1931, he conceded that the universe might indeed be expanding—an admission widely interpreted as one of the more elegant scientific about-turns in history.

It’s only fair to note that Georges Lemaître had reached a similar conclusion two years earlier, though with the misfortune of not being immediately noticed—proof that timing, in science as in comedy, is everything. The relationship is now properly called the Hubble–Lemaître Law.

Hubble’s own measurements, it turned out, were somewhat off—by as much as a factor of seven—thanks to the universe’s irritating habit of being more complicated than expected. But crucially, he got the pattern right. The universe really was expanding, and really was vastly larger than anyone had supposed.

In the end, Hubble did for the cosmos what Nicolaus Copernicus and Galileo Galilei had done before him: he removed us from the centre of things. Only this time, he didn’t just move us to the suburbs—he revealed that we were living in a universe so large that “suburbs” no longer seemed an entirely adequate concept.

SCIENCE AND MATHS  Hubble’s work provided the first evidence for the "Expanding Universe." He confirmed that the further away a galaxy is, the faster it is moving away from us (Hubble's Constant). He also created the "Hubble Sequence," a system for classifying galaxies.

PHILOSOPHY & THEOLOGY Hubble was raised as a Protestant Christian. His later writings suggest a growing uncertainty about religious belief. He was cautious about philosophical overreach in science, consistently refusing to endorse the "expanding universe" interpretation of his data without what he felt was sufficient proof — a scepticism that some colleagues found frustrating but which reflected a rigorous empirical temperament. (2)

POLITICS No strong political affiliations are recorded for Hubble. He served his country loyally in both World Wars — in the army in World War I and as a civilian ballistics researcher in World War II — suggesting a patriotism that transcended party lines. 

SCANDAL Hubble was accused by some historians and scientists of having downplayed or suppressed the priority of the Belgian priest Georges Lemaître, who had independently published what became known as Hubble's Law two years before Hubble. In 2011 the journal Nature reported concerns that key passages had been omitted from the 1931 English translation of Lemaître's 1927 paper. Further investigation by astronomer Mario Livio found a letter suggesting Lemaître himself had authorised the omissions, though debate continues. 

He was also known in later life for embellishing stories of his earlier sporting achievements and background, presenting himself as more thoroughly English than his Missouri roots warranted. (2)

MILITARY RECORD Hubble enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1917, assigned to the 86th Division, 2nd Battalion, 343rd Infantry Regiment. He rose to the rank of major and was found fit for overseas duty on July 9, 1918, though the 86th Division was broken up before seeing combat. He subsequently spent a year at the University of Cambridge continuing his astronomical research. 

Hubble's identity card in the American Expeditionary Forces

During World War II he served as a civilian at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, as Chief of the External Ballistics Branch of the Ballistic Research Laboratory. His development of the high-speed clock camera — enabling detailed study of bombs and projectiles in flight — significantly improved U.S. military effectiveness. 

He was awarded the Legion of Merit in 1946. 

HEALTH AND PHYSICAL FITNESS Hubble was in excellent physical condition throughout his early life, a dedicated multi-sport athlete who also took up heavyweight boxing at university. 

In July 1949, he suffered a serious heart attack while vacationing in Colorado. Grace nursed him back to health, but his working schedule was permanently reduced and long cold nights at the telescope came to an end. He died of cerebral thrombosis (a blood clot in the brain) aged 63.  (2)

HOMES Hubble was born in Marshfield, Missouri, and the family moved to Wheaton, Illinois before his first birthday. After his father moved the family to Shelbyville, Kentucky, in 1909, they eventually settled in Louisville's Highlands neighbourhood. 

From 1919 Hubble lived in the Pasadena/San Marino area of California, where his home at 1140 Woodstock Drive in San Marino — a National Historic Landmark — became a celebrated social gathering place for scientists and film stars. 

TRAVEL As a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, Hubble spent two summer vacations cycling around Europe, visiting Germany before World War I. He noted the militaristic character of the Germans and predicted a bloody war if fighting broke out between Germany and the Allied powers. 

He and Grace later travelled to England aboard the SS Statendam in 1936. He also made extended trips to the Sierra Nevada and Colorado for recreation. (6)

DEATH Hubble died of a cerebral thrombosis on September 28, 1953, in San Marino, California, aged 63. He had been walking home for lunch, as was his custom, when he collapsed; Grace picked him up. 

At his own request, no funeral was held, and Grace never revealed his burial site. 

When she died in 1980, she was interred at the same undisclosed location. His papers were donated by Grace to the Huntington Library in San Marino upon her death. (7)

APPEARANCES IN MEDIA Hubble appeared on the front cover of Time magazine in 1948. 

A play, Creation's Birthday, written by Cornell physicist Hasan Padamsee, tells his life story. 

A US postage stamp honouring Hubble was issued on March 6, 2008, as part of the "American Scientists" series, with the citation: "Often called a 'pioneer of the distant stars,' astronomer Edwin Hubble (1889–1953) played a pivotal role in deciphering the vast and complex nature of the universe." (2)

ACHIEVEMENTS Hubble proved that the universe is comprised of many galaxies beyond our own. 

He provided the observational evidence for the expansion of the universe. 

Hubble  was awarded the Franklin Medal (1939), the Legion of Merit (1946), and the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1940). 

The Hubble Space Telescope, launched April 24, 1990, is named in his honour. It is approximately the size of a large school bus (43.5 feet long) and uses only around 2,100 watts of power — comparable to a household clothes dryer. 

Additional namesakes include the crater Hubble on the Moon, the Edwin Hubble Highway (a stretch of Interstate 44 through his birthplace of Marshfield, Missouri), asteroid 2069 Hubble, and Hubble Middle School in Wheaton, Illinois. 

Sources: (1) Wikipedia – Edwin Hubble (2) Famous Scientists – Edwin Hubble (3) NASA/GSFC – Biography of Edwin Powell Hubble (4) Pipes Magazine – Edwin Powell Hubble (5) National Academy of Sciences – Edwin Hubble Biographical Memoir (6) San Marino Tribune – The Story of Grace Lillian Burke Hubble (7) Huntington Library – Edwin and Grace Hubble Wedding Day (8) The Huntington – Pets Collection (9 ) Discover Magazine – 5 Cats Who Owned Famous Scientists