The key differences between a space and ground telescope.

Astronomy hinges on that ability to observe the sky, and to do that we need telescopes. Astronomers have telescopes nearly everywhere on Earth and many more telescopes in orbit. 

But why do we need telescopes both on the Earth and in space? Why not just figure out which location is better, and just put all our telescopes there? The answer is much more complicated than it seems.

There are numerous arguments for space telescopes and numerous arguments for ground telescopes.

Advantages of space telescopes

The biggest advantage of space telescopes is that they do not need to see past Earth’s atmosphere. The reason stars twinkle at night is because of the movement of air currents in the atmosphere. As you might think, it is harder to look at a star that is twinkling than it is to look at a star that is shining. Space telescopes do not have to worry about any of that interference. This means that a space telescope can easily look at stars without having to make adjustments to filter out noise.

The blurry left image was taken by a ground telescope.

Advantages of ground telescopes

However, ground telescopes have many smaller advantages that make the rival a space telescope. First, ground telescopes can be as big as you can imagine. The largest ground telescope is nearly three and a half football fields across! That’s 23 times as big as the Hubble telescope. 

The Arecibo Telescope

Second, ground telescopes can be easily upgraded. Space telescopes have to be developed for a long time, meaning that when they launch, the technology is already obsolete. 

Third, ground-based telescopes are located all around the world. Space telescopes have extremely specific orbits that they cannot deviate far from.

Finally, even though ground telescopes have to look through the atmosphere, astronomers can get rid of some disturbance by simply moving higher up. This is because the atmosphere gets thinner the higher up you are. However, even at the highest mountains suitable for a telescope, there is still enough interference that it has to be taken into account when astronomers are taking a picture.

A telescope on a mountain in Hawaii

Pictures taken by these telescopes

Below are pictures taken by both ground and space telescopes.

While the imahttps://hubblesite.org/ges taken by space telescopes are sharper, the images taken by the ground telescopes contain more data. Both of these types of telescopes are vital for our understanding of how the cosmos works.

Do you have any cool information about telescopes? Do you like ground or space telescopes better? Let me know in the comments below!

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