science · 27 February 1924 · 100 years ago
In 1924, Harlow Shapley wrote back in reply to the letter from Edwin Hubble which presented the measurement of 300,00 parsecs as the distance to the Andromeda nebula. That was the first proof that the nebula was far outside the Milky, in fact, a separate galaxy. When Shapley had debated Heber Curtis on 26 Apr 1920, he presented his firm, life-long conviction that all the Milky Way represented the known universe (and, for instance, the Andromeda nebula was part of the Milky Way.) On receipt of the letter, Shapley told Payne-Gaposchkin and said “Here is the letter that has destroyed my universe.” In his reply, Shapley said sarcastically that Hubble's letter was “the most entertaining piece of literature I have seen for a long time.” Hubble sent more data in a paper to the AAS meeting, read on 1 Jan 1925.
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