After six decades during which it tracked lunar missions, spotted distant pulsars and quasars, and even expanded our concept of the size of the Universe, the Parkes telescope is still going strong.
We may need to re-think our models of Jupiter’s formation thanks to the first results from Juno probe orbiting the planet, and new observations from Earth.
The laws of physics dictate that to pick out ever fainter objects from space and see them more sharply, we’re going to need a bigger telescope. And that means we need massive mirrors.
Ground-based telescopes are getting bigger and better while still being cheaper than space telescopes. But the vital scientific contributions made by Hubble demonstrates why we need both.