Edwin Hubble

Astronomer Edwin Hubble was born to Virginia Lee Hubble and John Powell Hubble, an insurance executive, in Marshfield, Missouri on November 20, 1889.

Edwin Hubble

A talented athlete, Edwin Hubble broke the state record in the high jump, and went on to play basketball for the University of Chicago. 

He won a Rhodes scholarship and studied law at Oxford University. Hubble earned a Ph.D. in astronomy, but practiced law in Kentucky.

Edwin Hubble proved that Andromeda, previously believed to be a nebula, is actually another galaxy, and that the Milky Way is only one of many such galaxies in the universe. Hubble's discovery that the Andromeda nebula is actually another island universe far outside of our own Milky Way was first published in The New York Times on November 23, 1924.

Hubble provided evidence that the recessional velocity of a galaxy increases with its distance from the Earth, implying the universe is expanding.

Hubble's name is most widely recognized for the Hubble Space Telescope, which was named in his honor. As well as the Hubble Space Telescope, a crater on the Moon and a highway in Missouri was also named after him.