The Hubble Law: An Introductory Astronomy Lab

Edwin Hubble Discovers the Universe Credit: Mt. Wilson Archive, Carnegie Institution of Washington Explanation: No person in history has had greater impact in determining the extent of our universe than Edwin Hubble. From proving that other galaxies existed to proving that galaxies move apart from one another, Hubble's work defined our place in the cosmos. Hubble lived from 1889 to 1953 and is shown above posing with the 48-inch telescope on Palomar Mountain and his famous pipe. In memory of his great work, the Orbiting Space Telescope was named after him. Today a great controversy rages on the rate of the universe's expansion, parameterized by a quantity known as Hubble's constant. Picture and caption from Astronomy Picture of the Day, February 17, 1996. Corner animation adapted from an illustration at STScI public information site.

The lab was originally designed by Luis Mendoza and Bruce Margon, with lots of technical support from Eric Deutsch, Toby Smith, and Brooke Skelton, present and past members of the University of Washington Astronomy Department.

The galaxy spectra were obtained by Robert C. Kennicutt Jr. of the University of Arizona, and are published in The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, volume 79, pages 255-284, 1992, and are also available on the WWW. The digital images of the galaxies have been extracted from the CD-ROM version of the Palomar Observatory Sky Survey, which was produced under NASA contract by the Space Telescope Science Institute, operated by AURA, Inc. We gratefully acknowledge the various copyrights for that work.

This lab represents modifications and additions made by Ana Larson, to the original Hubble Law Lab developed by members of the Astronomy Department at the University of Washington. The real credit goes to the people involved in the original package.