Telescopes

 

Telescopes have played a vital role in expanding our understanding of the universe. They have allowed us to observe and study celestial objects that are too distant or too faint to be seen with the naked eye. Over the years, telescopes have become more powerful and sophisticated, enabling us to uncover new mysteries of the universe. In this article, we will discuss some of the current and future telescopes that are set to revolutionize astronomy.

Types of telescopes

Optical telescopes

Radio telescopes

X-ray and gamma-ray telescopes

Image: NASA's James Webb Space Telescope from Greenbelt, MD, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

NASA's Great Observatories

To grasp the wonders of the cosmos, and understand its infinite variety and splendor, we must collect and analyze radiation emitted by phenomena throughout the entire electromagnetic (EM) spectrum. Towards that end, NASA proposed the concept of Great Observatories, a series of four space-borne observatories designed to conduct astronomical studies over many different wavelengths (visible, gamma rays, X-rays, and infrared). An important aspect of the Great Observatory program was to overlap the operations phases of the missions to enable astronomers to make contemporaneous observations of an object at different spectral wavelengths.

For more information about NASA's Great Observatories, visit these sites:

James Webb Space Telescope

Hubble Space Telescope

Chandra X-ray Observatory

Telescope Articles, Videos, and Web Sites

• I search the internet daily for new articles from around the world that interest me or I think will interest you. My hope is that it saves you time or helps students with their assignments. Listed by most recent first. Hit NEXT button for more articles

• Future Space Telescopes Could be Made From Thin Membranes, Unrolled in Space to Enormous Size from Universe Today

• Pillars of Creation Star in New Visualization from NASA’s Hubble and Webb Telescopes video

• The World's Largest Digital Camera is Complete. It Will Go Into the Vera Rubin Observatory from Universe Today

• SLAC completes construction of the largest digital camera ever built for astronomy from Stanford University

• Could a telescope ever see the beginning of time? An astronomer explains from The Conversation

• This Guelph group 3D prints telescopes and loans them out for free from CBC

• Building Telescopes on the Moon Could Transform Astronomy—and It’s Becoming an Achievable Goal from Singularity Hub

• The Heart of the Milky Way Glows With Unprecedented Detail in New Webb Image from Gizmodo

• How the World’s Biggest Optical Telescope Could Crack Some of the Greatest Puzzles in Science from Singularity Hub

• A New Planet-Hunting Instrument Has Been Installed on the Very Large Telescope from Universe Today

• Future Telescopes With Liquid Mirrors Could Peer at Alien Worlds in Detail from Inverse

• Composing Webb Telescope Images video

• The PLATO Mission Could be the Most Successful Planet Hunter Ever from Universe Today

• Euclid 'dark universe' telescope reveals its 1st sparkling images of the cosmos (photos) from Space.com

• Goodbye Mirrors: This Telescope Could Collect 100x More Light Than the James Webb from Singularity Hub

• Gaze in Wonder at These Stunning Views of the Cosmos from Gizmodo

• Saturn’s Rings Shine in Webb’s Observations of Ringed Planet from JWST

• Stunning Webb photo shows a truly unbelievable number of galaxies from Mashable

• The next generation of telescopes in search of ET from ABC (Australia)

• Meet the Very Large Telescope, the world’s most powerful optical telescope video

• A Green Bank Telescope Prototype Radar System Can Image the Moon in High-Resolution and Detect Asteroids from Universe Today

• Why Do Spinning Liquids Make Great Telescopes? video

• Hubble Telescope Observes Surreal Galactic Collision from Gizmodo

• The Webb Telescope's Optics video

• Telescopes on the Moon from Aeon

• Construction Begins on the World’s Largest Steerable Radio Telescope from Universe Today

• Galaxies collide from European Southern Observatory

• Inside the Universe Machine: The Webb Space Telescope’s Chilly Sun Shield from IEEE Spectrum

• India’s Liquid Mirror Telescope Is Ready for Its Close-up from Gizmodo

• James Webb’s record-breaking first science image: explained from Freethink

• Astronomers Combine the Power of 64 Telescopes To Observe the Structure of the Universe from SciTechDaily

• The World's Largest Liquid-Mirror Telescope Comes Online from Universe Today

• Universe Today posted The Next Generation Very Large Array Would be 263 Radio Telescopes Spread Across North America

• James Webb Space Telescope Deployment Sequence video

• After the Collapse of Arecibo Motherboard video

• A small telescope past Saturn could solve some mysteries of the universe better than giant telescopes near Earth from The Conversation

• Why James Webb’s Infrared Vision is a Gamechanger Seeker video

• Vox posted How telescopes make the universe self-aware

• The Conversation posted James Webb Space Telescope: An astronomer on the team explains how to send a giant telescope to space – and why

• The future of cosmology is 239,000 miles away — but closer than ever from Inverse

• The Guardian posted Enormous balloon could help astronomers get clear view of space

• Quantum Double-Slit Experiment Offers Hope for Earth-Size Telescope from Quanta Magazine

• Hubble Science: Gravitational Lensing, Nature’s Boost video

• Undark posted In China, a Telescope Offers Cosmic Data Amid Earthly Tensions

• Jack Burns and the Lunar FARSIDE Telescope Fraser Cain (58:25) video

• How to choose a telescope from Sky and Telescope

• NASA’s Deep Space Network Welcomes a New Dish to the Family from the JPL

• The wondrous life—and death—of Puerto Rico’s Arecibo Observatory video

• SPHEREx: An All-Sky Spectral Survey designed to explore the origins of the universe

• Universe Today posted If We Used the Sun as a Gravitational Lens Telescope, This is What a Planet at Proxima Centauri Would Look Like

• See unreal drone footage of Arecibo Observatory's catastrophic collapse on CNET

• CSIRO has smashed a record by surveying 83% of the sky in just ten days, take a virtual tour at The Conversation

• Rubin Observatory Promotional Video

• An interesting CNET video See the world's first 3,200-megapixel photos taken in a single shot about the world's largest digital camera

• The future of stargazing is at risk because of a familiar, old enemy - Inverse

• California Scientists Build A Camera To Take Pictures Of Huge Swath Of Sky - npr.org

• Unveiling Rogue Planets With NASA’s Roman Space Telescope - nasa.gov

• The history and future of telescopes on the Moon - astronomy.com

• New infrared telescope to spot cosmic hidden treasures - phys.org

• Snapping A Space Shot - ucsb.edu

• German X-Ray Telescope Takes First Images of Universe. Here They Are! - space.com

• Three Extreme Ideas For Space Telescopes - Youtube

• China's Giant Telescope Picks Up Mysterious Signals From Deep Space - ndtv.com

• Turning Earth Into a Telescope The Terrascope - Youtube

• Building Giant Magellan, the world's largest telescope - CBS News

• An asteroid hit Earth right after being spotted by telescope this week - CNET

• Starshade space telescope technology blocks starlight to reveal planets orbiting stars - JPL

• New telescope to investigate mysterious light flashes on the moon - CNET

• Astronomers Dream Big, Consider Four Future Space Telescopes - Sky and Telescope

• The Milky Way as You’ve Never Seen It Before – AMNH SciCafe - Youtube (26:24)

• New South African Telescope Releases Epic Image of the Galactic Center - Gizmodo

• What Comes After James Webb and WFIRST? Four Amazing Future Space Telescopes - Youtube (14:49)

• Most images of black holes are illustrations. Here’s what our telescopes actually capture - VOX

• Space telescopes will find Earth 2.0. It's just a matter of time - TechRadar

• What is the Future of Space Telescopes? - Popular Mechanics

• Work begins on the world's biggest eye on the sky - ESO

• FAST Telescope - Universe Today

• Largest digital sky survey released by Pan-STARRS - Youtube (2:11) - 12/16

• The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) Camera Overview - Youtube (3:56) - 11/16

• Exploring the High Energy Universe with the Cherenkov Telescope Array - Youtube (13:12) - 10/16

• With a small side project, astronomers discover a new type of galaxy - Symmetry - 10/16

• Sense of the stars: New telescopes poised to unlock the universe - CNET - 08/16

• Desert telescope stakes out supermassive black hole - Phys.org - 05/16

• ATLASGAL Survey of Milky Way Completed - ESO - 02/16

• Shrinking the Telescope: The Future of Optical Technology - Youtube (3:55) - 01/16

• Andromeda galaxy scanned with high-energy X-ray vision - Phys.org - 01/16

• Giant New Telescopes To Unlock Science's Greatest Mysteries - Huff Post - 11/15

• New space telescope concept could image objects at far higher resolution than Hubble - University of Colorado Boulder - 01/15

• Loving the Stars- Telescopes, from Galileo to James Webb - Library of Congress - 05/12

• Telescope Technology Sites

• Event Horizon Telescope - aiming to capture the first image of a black hole

• Giant Magellan Telescope - Super giant earth-based telescope

• Herschel space observatory - ESA

• Hubble's Tuning Fork and Galaxy Classification - Penn State

• James Webb Space Telescope, successor to the Hubble Space Telescope - NASA

• Telescopes - Wikipedia

• WorldWide Telescope - Microsoft