Telescopes and instruments that orbit above Earth's atmosphere rather than sitting on the ground, freeing them from atmospheric absorption and distortion: the Hubble Space Telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope, the Kepler and Spitzer space telescopes, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, and the European Space Agency's Gaia astrometry mission. Belongs here: an observatory that operates from orbit or another point in space. Does not belong here: a ground-based facility, grouped under Ground-Based Radio and Millimeter Observatories or Ground-Based Optical Observatories.
Facts
Comparison
Field Origin Era All Space-Based Observatories
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Sources
1. Wikipedia: Space telescope
Wikimedia FoundationSpace telescope, lead sectionQuote, Space telescope, lead section
Suggested by Lyman Spitzer in 1946, the first operational telescopes were the American Orbiting Astronomical Observatory 2 launched in 1968, and the Soviet Orion 1 ultraviolet telescope aboard space station Salyut 1 in 1971.
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