Final answer:
Edwin Hubble used red shift measurements from standard candles to determine their distances, revealing the expansion of the universe and its acceleration. This led to the establishment of Hubble's Law and improved understanding of cosmic distances and the rate of universal expansion.
Step-by-step explanation:
Edwin Hubble used the amount of redshift in known standard candles to determine their distance from Earth, which is a critical component in understanding the expansion of the universe. By observing the redshift in the hydrogen spectra of galaxies and applying Hubble's Law, which states that the velocity of recession is proportional to distance, Hubble could infer that space itself was expanding.
This meant that galaxies were receding from our own, with those farther away receding faster, suggesting a universal acceleration. Standard candles, such as certain types of supernovae, are astronomical objects with known intrinsic luminosities, allowing astronomers to gauge their distances based on how bright they appear.
The discovery and use of these standard candles played an essential role in measuring long distances in the universe and contributed to the determination of the Hubble constant, which is used to estimate the rate of expansion of the universe and the time back to the Big Bang.