What makes the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) special and distinct from ground telescopes? There are many misconceptions regarding this that I first cleared up on October 12, 2012. Here are the two misconceptions I discussed in that post.
1. The HST takes better images because it is closer to the stars.
Well, technically it is closer, but stars are many light years away. Being a few miles closer to the stars out of a total distance of light years is almost no change in distance at all. HST quality images have nothing to do with distance.
2. The HST is the largest telescope.
Nope, not even close. The largest visible telescopes on Earth are around 8 meters in size. The HST is only 2.4 meters in size. If the HST was larger, it would be an even bigger telescope.
So what makes the HST special? Full details are discussed in the original post.
Hubble Space Telescope Misconception #1
The issue at play here is Earth's atmosphere. Earth's atmosphere produces turbulence (movement of air) that affects the quality of images. By getting above Earth's atmosphere, the HST doesn't have to worry about air turbulence and thus it produces much better images.
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