Edwin Hubble Edwin Hubble Edwin Powell Hubble (November 20, 1889 – September 28, 1953) was an American astronomer. He played a crucial role in establishing the fields of extragalactic astronomy and observational cosmology and is regarded as one of the most important astronomers of all time. Hubble discovered that many objects previously thought to be clouds of dust and gas and classified as "nebulae" were actually galaxies beyond the Milky Way. He used the strong direct relationship between a classical Cepheid variable's luminosity and pulsation period (discovered in 1908 by Henrietta Swan Leavitt) for scaling galactic and extragalactic distances. Hubble provided evidence
NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database The NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) is an on-line astronomical database for astronomers that collates and cross-correlates astronomical information on extragalactic objects (galaxies, quasars, radio, x-ray and infrared sources, etc.). NED was created in the late 1980s by two Pasadena astronomers, George Helou and Barry F. Madore. NED is funded by NASA and is operated by the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC) on the campus of the California Institute of Technology, under contract with NASA. NED is built around a master list of extragalactic objects for which cross-identifications of names have been established, accurate positions and redshifts