Edwin Hubble received the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1940. The award recognized his influential observational work on galaxies, their distances, and the large-scale structure of the universe.
Hubble’s most famous discoveries came from observations at Mount Wilson Observatory, where he used the 100-inch Hooker Telescope. In the 1920s, he showed that several objects then called “spiral nebulae” were actually separate galaxies far beyond the Milky Way. He later compared galaxy distances with redshift measurements to identify the relationship now associated with Hubble’s law.
The medal is the Royal Astronomical Society’s highest honor and has been awarded for major contributions to astronomy or geophysics. Hubble’s 1940 award is sometimes confused with the Barnard Medal, which he received earlier, in 1935. It is also distinct from the Bruce Medal, awarded by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.