The Shapley-Curtis Debate:
1920
•
Are spiral nebulae really other
galaxies, or just swirling clouds of gas
and dust within our own galaxy?
•
Many spiral galaxies had much larger
radial velocities than other objects
within our own galaxy
•
Answered by new observations:
•
In 1923/4 Edwin Hubble photographed and identified Cepheids in the
Andromeda Galaxy:
–
Distance to Cepheids cleared showed Andromeda was outside our own galaxy