The Evolution Of Telescopes : From Galileo To The James Webb Space Telescope


The journey for this evolution started with Galileo Galilei's refracting telescope, inspired by the Danish perspective glass in 1609. The March of 1610, Galilea published his observations of the Moon, Sun, phases of Venus, and four moons of Jupiter in a writing called the Starry Messenger. These observations provided a way to the notion that the Moon had a similar topology to the Earth, mapping mountains and craters. Following this, in 1668, Sir Isaac Newton revolutionized the development of telescopes. Newton's reflecting telescope, known as the Newtonian telescope, was the first to eliminate chromatic aberration by using a concave primary mirror and a flat diagonal secondary mirror to gather and focus light, making it different from traditional telescopes which used lenses. Moving onward towards the 18th and 19th centuries, the telescopes saw an improvement in their lens and mirror qualities. This was demonstrated by William Herschel's telescopes, one of which enabled the discovery of Uranus and allowed astronomers to observe fainter and more distant objects. Launched in 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope represented a remarkable advancement in our ability to explore the cosmos. Despite challenges faced during its launch, such as a flawed mirror requiring a space mission to repair, Hubble successfully provided high-resolution images free from atmospheric distortion. Hubble’s discoveries ranged, from photographing two undiscovered moons of Pluto to finding water vapor erupting off the surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa to being the first telescope to observe an asteroid disintegrating and much more. Ending our journey in December 2021, at the launch of the largest and most influential space telescope ever created: The James Webb Space Telescope. The JWST captures infrared waves instead of visible light, allowing it to see more distant, smaller, and colder objects. This allowed the telescope to look further back in time than Hubble, offering glances nearly 13.7 billion years into the past.

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By Mahi Srivastava