Telescopes and Other Tools

Image Courtesy of NASA

The Hubble Space Telescope

Since the time of Galileo, astronomers wanting to see farther into space have developed advanced telescopes to observe finer details of celestial objects. Reflecting and refracting telescopes use different technologies with mirrors and lenses. Observatories use large telescopes, while planetariums allow observers to project images of the sky onto a large screen to study celestial elements. By using spectroscopes or spectrometers, astronomers can discover the gases of each star, its density, and even its temperature. Space telescopes, such as the Hubble Space Telescope, orbit the Earth and transmit more data about the universe than ever before using a variety of wavelengths. As humans advance the methods by which they study space, answers to age-old questions become more readily available and new discoveries continue the quest for more knowledge about the universe and what it holds.