Hubble's constant

Hub·ble's constant

 (hŭb′əlz)

n.

A ratio used in Hubble's law to express the rate of apparent expansion of the universe, equal to the velocity at which a typical galaxy is receding from Earth divided by its distance from Earth, approximately 71 kilometers per second per megaparsec.

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[After Edwin Powell Hubble.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Hubble's Constant

In 1924, Edwin P. Hubble discovered that the farther away a galaxy is, the faster its apparent speed. The speed-to-distance ratio is the constant, now measured at 30–60 mi/sec (50–100 km/sec) per million parsecs.

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Thesaurus

Noun

1.

Hubble's constant - (cosmology) the ratio of the speed of recession of a galaxy (due to the expansion of the universe) to its distance from the observer; the Hubble constant is not actually a constant, but is regarded as measuring the expansion rate today Hubble constant, Hubble parameter, Hubble's parameter cosmogeny, cosmogony, cosmology - the branch of astrophysics that studies the origin and evolution and structure of the universe constant - a number representing a quantity assumed to have a fixed value in a specified mathematical context; "the velocity of light is a constant"

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