China announces its new flagship space telescope mission
Distant galaxies, dark matter, dark energy and the origin and evolution of the universe itself are some of the many scientific goals of China's newly announced space telescope. If all goes according to plan, the China Space ...
What it means to have a space telescope
Owning and operating a space telescope really opens the doors to a treasury of information about the universe. Certainly, that's what motivated the creation of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The dream of cosmic exploration motivated Hermann Oberth in the 1920s to write semi-science-fictional treatises about orbiting telescopes on asteroids. In his view, astronomers would live and work in space while using the telescope for extended periods of time. Their view would be unobstructed by Earth and its atmosphere. That vision inspired a number of later scientists to start planning a space telescope for real. Their work culminated in HST, the first of the so-called "great observatories" lofted to orbit. The others are Chandra X-Ray Observatory, Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, and Spitzer Space Telescope.
Owning and operating a space telescope really opens the doors to a treasury of information about the universe. Certainly, that's what motivated the creation of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The dream of cosmic exploration motivated Hermann Oberth in the 1920s to write semi-science-fictional treatises about orbiting telescopes on asteroids. In his view, astronomers would live and work in space while using the telescope for extended periods of time. Their view would be unobstructed by Earth and its atmosphere. That vision inspired a number of later scientists to start planning a space telescope for real. Their work culminated in HST, the first of the so-called "great observatories" lofted to orbit. The others are Chandra X-Ray Observatory, Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, and Spitzer Space Telescope.
Scientifically, orbiting space telescopes offer huge payoffs across a wide range of the electromagnetic spectrum. For example, before HST, no one really had a good idea of the extent of galaxies in the universe. The famous Hubble Deep Field views let astronomers observe stars and galaxies as they were shortly after the Big Bang, in both visible and infrared light. HST revealed glimpses of the large-scale structure in the cosmos and objects as small as exoplanets, comets, and asteroids. All the great observatories set the stage for new generations of orbiting instruments, such as the James Webb Space Telescope, the European Space Agency's GAIA, NASA's WISE telescope, and now, the CSST.
Artist’s concept of the Chinese Space Station Telescope (CSST). Credit: Jaimito130805, CC BY-SA 4.0
NASA’s Great Observatories (CGRO, Chandra, HST and Spitzer) with the electromagnetic thermometer scale. X-Rays are associated with high temperatures of about 10 million – 100 million K. Credit: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss
Rendering of Tiangong Space Station between October 2021 and March 2022, with Tianhe core module in the middle, Tianzhou-2 cargo spacecraft on the left, Tianzhou-3 cargo spacecraft on the right, and Shenzhou-13 crewed spacecraft at nadir. Credit: Shujianyang, CC BY-SA 4.0