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.
Space junk is making low Earth orbit crowded.
Johan Swanepoel/Shuttertock
SpaceX recently launched 60 satellites into orbit around Earth as part of its Starlink programme.
This enhanced-color image of Jupiter’s south pole and its swirling atmosphere was created by citizen scientist Roman Tkachenko using data from the JunoCam imager on NASA’s Juno spacecraft.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Roman Tkachenko
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.
20 tons of Ohara E6 borosilicate glass being loaded onto the mold of one of the GMT’s mirrors.
Ray Bertram, Steward Observatory
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.
Bye, Earth telescopes! You will never reach my level.
ESA
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.