Tag: George Ellery Hale

Hale, Hooker, Hubble, Humason

Clockwise from upper left: George Ellery Hale, Edwin Powell Hubble, Milton La Salle Humason, John Daggett Hooker, Hooker 100-inch telescope at Mt. Wilson Observatory

Edwin Powell Hubble (1889-1953) was born in Marshfield, Missouri, nine years after a devastating F4 tornado destroyed most of the town, killing 99 people and injuring 100. The Hubble family moved to Wheaton, Illinois (near Chicago) the year Edwin was born.

After receiving a B.S. degree from the University of Chicago in 1910, Hubble spent three years at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. The experience must have made quite an impression on young Hubble, as he returned to the U.S. with an affected British accent and other mannerisms (such as smoking a pipe) that stayed with him (and sometimes irritated others) for the rest of his life.

George Ellery Hale (1868-1938) offered Hubble a job at the Mount Wilson Observatory in 1919, and that same year also hired a talented man who would soon become Hubble’s assistant, Milton Humason (1891-1972), just as Mt. Wilson’s 100-inch Hooker telescope (the largest in the world at that time) started to see regular use.

Hubble identified Cepheid variables in M31, the Andromeda Nebula (and some other spiral nebulae), using the 100-inch in 1922-1923. From those observations, Hubble determined without a shadow of doubt that the Andromeda Nebula is in fact another galaxy of stars lying far beyond our own Milky Way galaxy. Up until this time, there was great debate about whether “spiral nebulae” like M31 were within our own galaxy or beyond it. Many thought that our galaxy was the entire universe. Thanks to Edwin Hubble and those who followed him, we now know that our galaxy is but one of many billions in this unimaginably vast universe we are lucky enough to explore.

How did Hubble use the faint Cepheid variables to determine the distance to M31? Cepheid variables are very luminous yellow giant and supergiant stars whose luminosity is directly related to the period of time it takes for the star to vary in brightness from brightest to dimmest to brightest again. The longer the period, the brighter the star really is. Knowing the apparent brightness of a star (dependent on distance), and knowing its true brightness (not dependent on distance), we can easily calculate the distance to the star. In the case of M31, the Andromeda Galaxy, we now know its distance to be 2.48 ± 0.04 million light years. M31 and the Milky Way are comparable in size and mass, and are by far the two largest galaxies of the Local Group, which contains at least 80 members. M31 and our Milky Way are moving towards each other due to gravitational attraction, and they will “collide” in about 4 to 5 billion years, probably leading to the formation of a giant elliptical or lenticular galaxy. But no one on Earth will witness this event. Due to the warming Sun, the surface of the Earth will become lifeless in a billion years or so.

Project Gutenberg

Over 56,000 historical books and other documents, most published prior to 1923, are available online for downloading or browsing at Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org/), with more being added all the time. A quick search of the term “astronomy” yields the following:

The Discovery of a World in the Moone: Or, A Discovrse Tending To Prove That ‘Tis Probable There May Be Another Habitable World In That Planet (1638)
John Wilkins (1614-1672)

The Study of Astronomy, Adapted to the capacities of youth (1796)
John Gabriel Stedman (1744-1797)

The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler (1841)
David Brewster (1781-1868)

Lectures on Astronomy (1854)
The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (1911)
George Horatio Derby (1823-1861), writing under the name of John Phoenix
Marshall Pinckney Wilder (1859-1915), editor

Letters on Astronomy: In which the Elements of the Science are Familiarly Explained in Connection with Biographical Sketches of the Most Eminent Astronomers (1855)
Denison Olmsted (1791-1859)

The Uses of Astronomy: An Oration Delivered at Albany on the 28th of July, 1856 (1856)
Edward Everett (1794-1865)

Cosmos: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 (1858)
Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859)

Curiosities of Science, Past and Present: A Book for Old and Young (1858)
John Timbs (1801-1875)

Astronomy for Young Australians (1866)
James Bonwick (1817-1906)

Meteoric astronomy: A treatise on shooting-stars, fire-balls, and aerolites (1867)
Daniel Kirkwood (1814-1895)

Popular Books on Natural Science: For Practical Use in Every Household, for Readers of All Classes (1869)
Aaron David Bernstein (1812-1884)

Half-hours with the Telescope: Being a Popular Guide to the Use of the Telescope as a Means of Amusement and Instruction (1873)
Richard Anthony Proctor (1837-1888)

Astronomical Myths: Based on Flammarions’s “History of the Heavens” (1877)
John Frederick Blake (1839-1906)
Camille Flammarion (1842-1925)

New and Original Theories of the Great Physical Forces (1878)
Henry Raymond Rogers (1822-1901)

Recreations in Astronomy: With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work (1879)
Henry White Warren (1831-1912)

The Sidereal Messenger of Galileo Galilei and a Part of the Preface to Kepler’s Dioptrics Containing the Original Account of Galileo’s Astronomical Discoveries (1880)
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)
Edward Stafford Carlos ((1842–1927), translator

Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works (1880)
Edward Singleton Holden (1846-1914)

Popular Scientific Recreations in Natural Philosophy, Astronomy, Geology, Chemistry, etc., etc., etc. (1881)
Gaston Tissandier (1843-1899)

Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Volume 1 (1889)
Astronomical Society of the Pacific (1889-)

A Textbook of General Astronomy for Colleges and Scientific Schools (1889)
Charles Augustus Young (1834-1908)

Time and Tide: A Romance of the Moon (1889)
Robert Stawell Ball (1840-1913)

Astronomy with an Opera-glass: A Popular Introduction to the Study of the Starry Heavens with the Simplest of Optical Instruments (1890)
Garrett Putman Serviss (1851-1929)

Pioneers of Science (1893)
Sir Oliver Joseph Lodge (1851-1940)

Great Astronomers (1895)
Robert Stawell Ball (1840-1913)

The Astronomy of Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’ (1896)
Thomas Nathaniel Orchard, M.D.

Myths and Marvels of Astronomy (1896)
Richard Anthony Proctor (1837-1888)

The Story of Eclipses (1899)
George Frederick Chambers (1841-1915)

The Tides and Kindred Phenomena in the Solar System: The Substance of Lectures Delivered in 1897 at the Lowell Institute, Boston, Massachusetts (1899)
Sir George Howard Darwin (1845-1912)

The Royal Observatory, Greenwich: A Glance at Its History and Work (1900)
Edward Walter Maunder (1851-1928)

The Story of the Heavens (1900)
Robert Stawell Ball (1840-1913)

Other Worlds: Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries (1901)
Garrett Putman Serviss (1851-1929)

Pleasures of the telescope: An Illustrated Guide for Amateur Astronomers and a Popular Description of the Chief Wonders of the Heavens for General Readers (1901)
Garrett Putman Serviss (1851-1929)

A Text-Book of Astronomy (1903)
George Cary Comstock (1855-1934)

Astronomical Discovery (1904)
Herbert Hall Turner (1861-1930)

A New Astronomy (1906)
David Peck Todd (1855-1939)

New Theories in Astronomy (1906)
William Stirling (1822-1900)

Side-Lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science (1906)
Simon Newcomb (1835-1909)

The Children’s Book of Stars (1907)
Geraldine Edith Mitton (1868-1955)

Mathematical Geography (1907)
Willis Ernest Johnson (1869-1951)

Astronomical Instruments and Accessories (1908)
William Gaertner and Company (1896-)
now Gaertner Scientific Corporation

The Astronomy of the Bible: An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References of Holy Scripture (1908)
Edward Walter Maunder (1851-1928)

A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century, Fourth Edition (1908)
Agnes Mary Clerke (1842-1907)

Astronomical Curiosities: Facts and Fallacies (1909)
John Ellard Gore (1845-1910)

The Future of Astronomy (1909)
Edward Charles Pickering (1846-1919)

History of Astronomy (1909)
George Forbes (1849-1936)

Astronomy for Amateurs (1910)
Camille Flammarion (1842-1925)

Astronomy of To-day: A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language (1910)
Cecil Goodrich Julius Dolmage (1870-1908)

The World’s Greatest Books — Volume 15 — Science (1910)
Arthur Mee (1875-1943), editor
Sir John Alexander Hammerton (1871-1949), editor

The Science of the Stars (1912)
Edward Walter Maunder (1851-1928)

Are the Planets Inhabited? (1913)
Edward Walter Maunder (1851-1928)

Woman in Science: With an Introductory Chapter on Woman’s Long Struggle for Things of the Mind (1913)
John Augustine Zahm (1851-1921), writing under the name H. J. Mozans

A Field Book of the Stars (1914)
William Tyler Olcott (1873-1936)

An Introduction to Astronomy (1916)
Forest Ray Moulton (1872-1952)

Scientific Papers by Sir George Howard Darwin. Volume V. Supplementary Volume (1916)
Sir George Howard Darwin (1845-1912)
Ernest William Brown (1866-1938), contributor
Sir Francis Darwin (1848-1925), contributor

The gradual acceptance of the Copernican theory of the universe (1917)
Dorothy Stimson (1890-1988)

Astronomical Lore in Chaucer (1919)
Florence Marie Grimm

Lectures on Stellar Statistics (1921)
Carl Vilhelm Ludwig Charlier (1862-1934)

The Star People (1921)
Gaylord Johnson

Terrestrial and Celestial Globes Volume 1: Their History and Construction Including a Consideration of their Value as Aids in the Study of Geography and Astronomy (1921)
Edward Luther Stevenson (1858-1944)

Terrestrial and Celestial Globes Volume 2: Their History and Construction Including a Consideration of their Value as Aids in the Study of Geography and Astronomy (1921)
Edward Luther Stevenson (1858-1944)

Astronomy for Young Folks (1922)
Isabel Martin Lewis (1881-1966)

Astronomy: The Science of the Heavenly Bodies (1922)
David Peck Todd (1855-1939)

The New Heavens (1922)
George Ellery Hale (1868-1938)

Watchers of the Sky (1922)
Alfred Noyes (1880-1958)

Biography of Percival Lowell (1935)
Abbott Lawrence Lowell (1856-1943)