A Life of Edwin Hubble
A TRUE TALE WITH
A CHERRY ON TOP
Enchanted Lion Books
(pub.1.19.2021) 52 pages
Author: Isabelle Marinov
Illustrator: Deborah Marcero
Character: Edwin Hubble
Overview:
"This is the story of Edwin Hubble, a boy fascinated by the stars who surmounted many hurdles to follow his dreams of becoming an astronomer. Using the insights of great mathematicians and endlessly observing the sky, he succeeded in confirming two things that altered human life forever: that there are more galaxies than our own, and that the universe is always expanding. Hubble’s message to us is to find peace in the vastness of the mystery surrounding us, and to be curious. “We do now know why we are born into the world,” he said, “but we can try to find out what sort of world it is.”
Tantalizing taste:
" Thinking,
Wondering.
Measuring.
Calculating.
On some days, his fingers and toes grew numb and tears froze his eyelashes to the telescope's eyepiece. but nothing could lure him back inside.
And then, in 1923, he found what he had been looking for.
Inside the Andromeda nebula, Edwin discovered a pulsating star that brightened and dimmed like a lighthouse beacon. He was able to measure the distance between Andromeda's blinking star and the Earth because of the incredible work of Henrietta Swan Leavitt, a brilliant astronomer at the Harvard Observatory...
The measurements told Edwin that the star was very, very far away. So far that it couldn't possibly be within our galaxy."
And something more: Isabelle Marinov, in the Author's Note, writes: "...Hubble redefined our place in the cosmos. Why hadn't I known this? Why do we know so much about Napoleon and other military figures, and so little about the man who discovered that the universe is so much bigger than anyone ever imagined?... And the universe is constantly expanding ...
Our universe may not be the only one. We could be part of a multiverse of co-existing universes.
It is this cosmic perspective that I've tried to convey through Edwin's story, a perspective that is lost on so many of our world's leaders. Planet Earth is nothing more than an infinitesimal fraction of a mote of dust in the vast cosmic tapestry. Maybe one day, this realization will help us overcome our narrowness of perspective, which lies at the root of so many of our earthly problems."