Word: nebula
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Casting around for a layman's analogy, Hubble compared the exploding universe to a rubber balloon with small dots (representing nebulae) spaced equally far apart on its surface. When the balloon is blown up larger, each dot becomes farther from every other dot. Place an observer on any dot, and he will see the same picture. Every other dot-nebula will be moving away from...
...announcement of the exploding universe theory threw all grades of scientists-from semi-mystic philosophers to earthy materialists-into counterattack. Some critics could not believe that the nebulae move at such breakneck speed. Einstein's Relativity (supreme law of physics) says that nothing can move faster than light (186,000 miles per second). But Hubble and Humason have clocked a nebula about 250 million light-years away that seems to be moving at 26,000 miles per second, more than one-eighth the speed of light. They have glimpsed nebulae twice as far away. If the nebulae continue...
...light waves, making them longer (redder) than normal. But since red light contains less energy per unit (photon) than violet light, Bubble's critics suggest that light may lose some of its energy in traversing space, thus turning redder. It may start out from a distant nebula as young, vigorous violet and arrive at the earth after millions of weary years as old, tired red. If that is what happens, perhaps nebulae are not moving...
...nebula-dotted universe is finite, what lies beyond it? Robertson does not know. Perhaps, he admits, there may exist, far off in some medium that is thinner than space, still other universes. But each, presumably, is sealed in its own bubble of space, the light from its stars circulating endlessly, never escaping to reach our astronomers' telescopes. Scientists, briskly dusting their hands of other universes, say that if they exist, they must be penetrated by "nonphysical means...
...will telephone instructions to an assistant down at the control desk; the massive telescope will swing almost silently. When Hubble is satisfied that it is pointed right, he will put a plate in the holder, watch through a microscope, and make careful minor adjustments while the scattered photons of nebula light (some of which have been traveling for a billion years) make their marks on the photosensitive emulsion...