Space telescope

A telescope operated beyond Earth’s atmosphere, where it can observe celestial objects without atmospheric absorption, distortion, or blockage.

Astronomical instrument: A device that collects or analyzes electromagnetic radiation from celestial objects. Space telescopes are astronomical instruments designed to operate outside the atmosphere.
Hubble Space Telescope: A NASA–ESA observatory launched in 1990 that observes primarily ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared light. Its long record shows how a general-purpose optical observatory serves many fields.
Ground-based astronomy: Astronomical observation conducted with instruments on Earth’s surface. Ground observatories avoid launch constraints but face atmospheric distortion and absorption.
Lyman Spitzer: An American astrophysicist who advocated placing large astronomical observatories in space. His 1946 report laid out scientific and technical reasons for space-based astronomy.
Ultraviolet astronomy: The study of celestial objects through ultraviolet radiation. Earth’s atmosphere absorbs most ultraviolet light, making space access essential.
Electromagnetic spectrum: The complete range of electromagnetic radiation, ordered by wavelength or frequency. Different space telescopes observe different parts of this spectrum.
James Webb Space Telescope: A NASA–ESA–CSA infrared observatory launched in 2021 and stationed near the Sun–Earth L2 point. Its infrared observations probe early galaxies, star formation, and exoplanet atmospheres.
Adaptive optics: A technique that corrects atmospheric image distortion by rapidly reshaping a telescope’s optics. It narrows the resolution gap between ground-based telescopes and space observatories.
Orbiting Astronomical Observatory: A NASA program of four ultraviolet and X-ray observatories launched between 1966 and 1972. The program established that useful observatories could operate successfully in orbit.
X-ray astronomy: The study of cosmic sources through X-ray radiation. Space observatories revealed black holes, hot plasmas, and other sources hidden from ground instruments.

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