Visual demonstration of the Hubble law

Abstract

In 1929, Edwin Hubble found observational evidence for that the universe has finite age and is expanding, which provided strong support for the Big Bang theory. The idea is that if galaxies are moving away from each other now, they must have been closer together in the past, eventually leading back to a singular point. Although Hubble’s discovery can be summarized by a very simple equation, the consequences of this phenomenon is hard to imagine without visualization. This paper presents a model for the calculation of the spectral radiance in expanding spaces and a GPU-efficient visualization algorithm to demonstrate the universe expansion. The model allows for the modification of physical parameters, therefore it is appropriate for teaching and testing different scenarios.