Moving Towards Atlast (Telescopes)

Cosmos has fascinated humans more than any other things and it has been human nature to explore it, and with our increasing knowledge in science and technology and with the combination of Engineering we are able to creat wonders which was even impossible for man to think before a century ago and to explore the Cosmos telescopes have provide great aid. Let's look down on our mission of telescope from Galileo to the Nasa's futuristic telescope Atlast. .

Principles of reflection telescope

Basically telescope are of two types
1. Refraction : uses only lenses for magnification purpose
2. Reflection or Newtonian as invented by Newton : uses mirror for reflection the image image is formed after reflection through the mirror. This type of Telescopes are wide used because the quality of image is higher.
It all started when Galileo uses his low magnification telescope to study the moon's orbit of Jupiter and it was a revolution in field of astronomy and since there was tremendous technological increment in astronomy. In the early 20th century Edwin Hubble used his 100 inch (5.1meter) telescope to tell us that the universe is expanding and the cluster of dust in the space are galaxies which are far away from our own galaxy the milky way. And to honour him after his death a gigantic telescope know as The Hubble Space telescope was launched in the low earth orbit in 1990,  and since than it has been in operation  HST has expanded our understanding of star birth, star death, and Galaxy evolution, and has helped move black holes from theory to fact. In its first 15 years, the telescope recorded over 700,000 images. (if want to know more about Hubble click here http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope)
If you want to explore more pictures from the Hubble click here http://hubblesite.org/gallery/

Hubble space telescope 

Beautiful picture from the Hubble 

 The next giant to take Hubbles place is to set of from earth in the year 2018 expected by Nasa it is James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) formerly know as Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST) The JWST will offerunprecedented resolution and sensitivity from long-wavelength
visible to the mid-infrared , and is a
successor instrument to the Hubble
Space Telescope. It has a 6.5meter primary mirror what will capture light  Webb is designed to look deeper into
space to see the earliest stars and
galaxies that formed in the Universe
and to look deep into nearby dust
clouds to study the formation of stars
and planets. In order to do this,
Webb will have a much larger primary
mirror than Hubble (2.7 times larger
in diameter, or about 6 times larger in
area). This telescope will be located at a distance of 1 million mile away from the earth so this has to be manufactured perfectly because the cost of repair will be much higher as compared to Hubble get full details click here( www​.just.nasa.gov/)
The next big mission will be launched in the next decade which is now named as the ATLAST by Nasa to be scheduled for 2025-2035 which will use mirror of size 8 to 16 meter in size and it will focus on finding the planet which will resemble like earth in shape and in the goldilocks zones.

Suggested view of Atlast telescope 

For more and best Hubble pics click here http://gigapica.geenstijl.nl/2011/09/pictures_taken_by_the_hubble_s.html

Suggested view of James webb space telescope