Hubble Space Telescope
The telescope that changed our understanding of the Universe.
The Hubble Space Telescope, May 2009. Image credit: NASA
Hubble Space Telescope History
Early Beginnings
The idea for a space-based telescope dates back to 1946 when astronomer Lyman Spitzer made two points about the limitations of land-based telescopes:
Ultraviolet light and infrared light are blocked by the Earth’s atmosphere, and second:
Image quality or resolution of deep space objects is limited due to turbulence in the atmosphere.
An orbiting telescope could resolve those two issues.