Hubble's law
- noun
- /ˈhʌbəlz lɔ/
- Specialized
:
ley de Hubble
- Scientists use Hubble's law to estimate the distance of faraway galaxies based on their speed.
Examples
-
The amount of this redshift increases with distance, according to the well-established Hubble's law.
Academic text (1995) -
According to Hubble's law, galaxies that are farther away from us move away faster than those that are closer.
-
How big are the biggest ones, how large are the largest holes between, and by how much does their motion differ from the average expansion of the universe (Hubble's law, for short)?
Academic text (1995) -
Hubble's law explains why distant galaxies appear to be receding from Earth at an increasing speed.
Synonyms
Galaxies farther from us move away faster
Surface Forms
Morphology
Hubble's + law
The possessive proper name 'Hubble's' conveys no descriptive meaning to a B1 learner who does not know the astronomer, and 'law' only indicates a generic scientific rule. The specific astronomical content (that galaxy recession speed is proportional to distance) cannot be derived from the constituents, so the term is not transparent to learners.
Etymology
Hubble's law is named after the astronomer Edwin Hubble, who found that distant galaxies appear to 'move away' faster the farther they are. One simple picture is dots on a balloon: when you blow up the balloon, the dots farther apart move away faster, so Hubble's law means that the farther a galaxy is, the faster it seems to move away.
