Edwin Hubble Biography: Early Life, Career, Wife and Legacy

Edwin Hubble (born November 20, 1889, Marshfield, Missouri, United States—died September 28, 1953, San Marino, California) was an American astronomer who helped to establish the field of extragalactic astronomy and is widely regarded as the twentieth century’s leading observational cosmologist.

Hubble’s name is best known for the Hubble Space Telescope, which was named in his honour and has a model on display in his hometown of Marshfield, Missouri.

Edwin Hubble Biography

Edwin Hubble was born in Marshfield, Missouri, in 1889 to Virginia Lee Hubble (1864-1934) and John Powell Hubble, an insurance executive, and then relocated to Wheaton, Illinois in 1900.

In his youth, he was known more for his physical skills than his cerebral ability, but he received high marks in all subjects except spelling. Edwin was a great athlete who competed in baseball, football, and track throughout high school and college.

In 1906, he earned seven first places and a third place in a single high school track and field meet, and he played a variety of basketball positions, including center and shooting guard. Hubble guided the University of Chicago’s basketball team to its first Big Ten Conference title in 1907.

Edwin Hubble Education

Hubble was awarded a scholarship at the University of Chicago in 1906, where he worked as a student laboratory assistant for physicist Robert Millikan, who would go on to earn the Nobel Prize. Hubble graduated in 1910 and was chosen as a Rhodes Scholar from Illinois.

He attended the University of Oxford for three years and graduated with a B.A. in jurisprudence, a subject he took at his father’s suggestion. After his father died in 1913, he had the opportunity to pursue a career in science.

Hubble returned to the United States later in 1913 and spent a year teaching high school in Indiana. He then enrolled at the University of Chicago and pursued graduate studies in astronomy. Hubble carried out his observational studies at the Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, under the guidance of astronomer Edwin Frost.

By this point, Yerkes was no longer at the forefront of astronomy, but Hubble did have access to a very powerful telescope, an innovative 24-inch (61-cm) reflector.

Career

George Ellery Hale, the founder and director of the Carnegie Institution for Science’s Mount Wilson Observatory near Pasadena, California, offered Hubble a place on the observatory’s staff in 1919.

Hubble was on duty at Mount Wilson until he died in 1953. Shortly before his death, Hubble became the first astronomer to use the Palomar Observatory’s freshly completed 200-inch (5.1 m) reflector Hale Telescope.

Hubble also worked as a civilian for the United States Army at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland during World War II as the Chief of the External Ballistics Branch of the Ballistic Research Laboratory, where he directed a large volume of research in exterior ballistics that increased the effective firepower of bombs and projectiles.

His work was aided by his personal development of several pieces of equipment for exterior ballistics instrumentation, the most notable of which was the high-speed clock camera, which enabled the study of the properties of bombs and low-velocity projectiles in flight.

His findings were credited with increasing the design, performance, and military efficacy of bombs and rockets. He was honored with the Legion of Merit for his efforts there.

Edwin Hubble Wife and Death

Hubble married Grace Lillian (Burke) Leib (1889-1980), the daughter of John Patrick and Luella (Kepford) Burke, on February 26, 1924. Hubble suffered a heart attack in July 1949 while on vacation in Colorado. He was cared for by his wife and maintained a reduced diet and work schedule. He died of cerebral thrombosis (a blood clot in his brain) on September 28, 1953, in San Marino, California.

There was no funeral for him, and his wife never revealed where he was buried. The Huntington Library in San Marino, California, houses the bulk of Hubble’s papers, which include letters, photographs, notes, observing logbooks, and other materials. They were donated by his wife Grace Burke Hubble after she died in 1980..