not to recessional velocity, but to some presently unknown physical law, the term "red shift" could still be retained as a description.

Postwar Work

After World War II Hubble devoted a great deal of time to planning the research program of the 200-inch Hale telescope at Mount Palomar; he was almost entirely responsible for conceiving and executing the National Geographic Society-Palomar Observatory Sky Survey carried out with the 48-inch Schmidt telescope. He received many honors, including a number of honorary degrees and medals, as well as membership in the National Academy of Sciences and other honorary societies. For his war research he received the Medal of Merit for 1946. In 1948 he was elected an honorary fellow of Queen's College, Oxford. He died of a coronary thrombosis in San Marino,Calif., on Sept. 28, 1953. In 1990, NASA launched the Hubble Space Telescope, which was named in his honor.

Further Reading

Hubble discusses his own work in The Realm of the Nebulae (1937) and Observational Approach to Cosmology (1937). For brief treatments of his life and work see Bernard Jaffe, Men of Science in America (1944; rev. ed. 1958); Otto Struve and Velta Zebergs, Astronomy of the 20th Century (1962); and Harlow Shapley, Through Rugged Ways to the Stars (1969). □

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