|
Today, Richard Rael and Tony Riggs tell the story of American astronomer Edwin Hubble. He changed our ideas about the universe and how it developed. Edwin Hubble made his most important discoveries in the nineteen twenties. Today, other astronomers continue the work he began. Many of them are using the Hubble Space Telescope that is named after him. Edwin Powell Hubble was born in eighteen eighty-nine in Marshfield, Missouri. He spent his early years in the state of Kentucky. Then he moved with his family to Chicago, Illinois. He attended the University of Chicago. He studied mathematics and astronomy. Hubble was a good student. He was a good athlete, too. He was a member of the University of Chicago championship basketball team in nineteen-oh-nine. He also was an excellent boxer. Several people urged him to train for the world heavyweight boxing championship after college. Instead, he decided to continue his studies. He went to Queen's College at Oxford, England. At Oxford, Hubble studied law. He was interested in British Common Law, because his family had come to America from England many years before. He spent three years at Oxford. In nineteen thirteen, Hubble returned to the United States. He opened a law office in Louisville, Kentucky. After a short time, however, he decided he did not want to be a lawyer. He returned to the University of Chicago. There, once again, he studied astronomy. Hubble watched the night sky with instruments at the university's Yerkes Observatory. His research involved a major question astronomers could not answer: What are nebulae? | 
