About
The telescope was invented in the Netherlands around 1608; Galileo Galilei built his own and pointed it at the sky in 1609, discovering Jupiter's moons, Venus's phases, and the Milky Way's stellar composition — evidence that transformed cosmology. Subsequent generations of telescopes revealed the scale of the universe, the existence of other galaxies, and the Big Bang.
Modern telescopes include the James Webb Space Telescope (launched 2021), which observes infrared light from the first galaxies formed after the Big Bang; the Very Large Telescope in Chile; and the Event Horizon Telescope network that imaged a black hole in 2019. The Extremely Large Telescope (39m mirror) under construction will directly image exoplanet atmospheres — potentially detecting biosignatures.
# Top 10 Telescope facts
- 1Galileo's telescope magnified 20x — the Hubble is equivalent to 12 billion times more powerful
- 2The James Webb Space Telescope can see infrared light from galaxies that formed 13.6 billion years ago — 200 million years after the Big Bang
- 3The Extremely Large Telescope being built in Chile will have a mirror 39 meters across — gathering 100 million times more light than the human eye
Fascinating Facts
- ◆Galileo's telescope magnified 20x — the Hubble is equivalent to 12 billion times more powerful
- ◆The James Webb Space Telescope can see infrared light from galaxies that formed 13.6 billion years ago — 200 million years after the Big Bang
- ◆The Extremely Large Telescope being built in Chile will have a mirror 39 meters across — gathering 100 million times more light than the human eye
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