Hubble's law

American  

noun

Astronomy.

1. the law that the velocity of recession of distant galaxies from our own is proportional to their distance from us.

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Hubble's law British  

noun

1. astronomy a law stating that the velocity of recession of a galaxy is proportional to its distance from the observer

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Hubble's law Scientific  

/ hŭb′əlz /

1. A law of cosmology stating that the rate at which astronomical objects in the universe move apart from each other is proportional to their distance from each other. Current estimates of the value of this proportion, known as Hubble's constant, put its value at approximately 71 kilometers per second per megaparsec.

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Etymology

Origin of Hubble's law

First recorded in 1930–35; named after E. P. Hubble, discoverer of the relationship

Example Sentences

In a little-known journal called Annales de la Société Scientifique de Bruxelles, he showed that galaxies’ velocities appeared to be proportional to their distance — a relationship that became known as Hubble’s law.

From Nature • Oct. 29, 2018

What the researchers found was that these type Ia supernovae in distant galaxies were fainter than expected from Hubble’s law, given the measured redshifts of their host galaxies.

From Textbooks • Oct. 13, 2016

First, we must reliably establish Hubble’s constant by measuring both the distance and the velocity of many galaxies in many directions to be sure Hubble’s law is truly a universal property of galaxies.

From Textbooks • Oct. 13, 2016

If the expansion is slowing down, the velocity of a distant galaxy would be relatively greater than the velocity predicted by Hubble’s law.

From Scientific American • Jun. 28, 2012

While strict interpretation of Hubble's law would place the farthermost quasars more than 8 billion light-years from the earth, Schmidt refuses to assign a specific distance for any beyond the closest: 3C 273.

From Time Magazine Archive