Seeing for yourself in close-up – but it’s too dangerous and expensive to send astronomers deep into space. That’s why space probes are such important tools. Space probes are fitted with cameras. They beam back close-up photos of faraway planets and comets.
Amazing! Chandra is a billion times more powerful than the first X-ray telescope. If telescopes keep improving at this rate, we’ll be able to see the farthest edges of the Universe in 30 years’ time!
Is it true? A probe found a watery world.
Yes. The Voyager 2 probe photographed what might be water on Jupiter’s moon, Europa. If there is life out there, probes will probably find it first.
Could we build an observatory on the Moon?
The dark side of the Moon would be a perfect site. Always pointing away from the Earth, it is shielded from man-made X-rays. But building there would be very expensive.
Could we build Very Large Arrays in space?
Scientists are already testing a cluster of satellites that fly in perfect formation, using laser beams. The same technology will be used to create a string of small satellite telescopes, making one huge ‘eye’ in space.
Picture Credit : Google