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Great Observatories
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Images
Hubble Space Telescope Mars, with the dark feature Syrtis Major visible near the planet's centre and its north polar cap at the top, imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope, 1997. EGRET all-sky map The Compton Gamma Ray Observatory as seen through the space shuttle window during deployment in 1990. Chandra X-ray Observatory Sagittarius A* Spitzer Space Telescope Illustration of a space-based long-range interferometer system for detecting gravitational waves, showing three spacecraft in triangular formation exchanging laser beams, with labeled components including interferometers, solar arrays, thrusters, and the path of gravity waves, as well as Earth's position and orbital path in the background.
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Hubble Space Telescope
Hubble Space Telescope Hubble Space Telescope, photographed by the space shuttle Discovery.

Great Observatories

United States satellite observatories
Written by
Dave Dooling
Education and Public Outreach Officer, National Solar Observatory, Sacramento Peak, New Mexico. Coauthor of Engineering Tomorrow.
Dave Dooling
Fact-checked by
Britannica Editors
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
Britannica Editors
History

Great Observatories, a semiformal grouping of four U.S. satellite observatories that had separate origins: the Hubble Space Telescope, the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the Spitzer Space Telescope. The grouping came about because the four would provide unprecedented spatial and temporal coverage across much of the electromagnetic spectrum from gamma rays (Compton) through X-rays (Chandra) and visible light (Hubble) to the infrared (Spitzer). The Great Observatories concept was developed in the...

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