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So if we can do these, why do we want to launch super expensive orbital telescopes?

• ahmedfromtunis 4y ago
  Because these are still inside Earth's atmosphere — there's much less of it up there, sure, but even that little air can have a great impact.
• dtgriscom 4y ago
  Because orbital telescopes can stay up there for years. That said, there's a need for both. It takes a whole lot less capital and time to get a telescope up under a balloon, and it can come down, be refurbished, and sent back up again.
• Cthulhu_ 4y ago
  The James Webb's unique selling point is that it's cooled to -233 degrees science, eliminating a lot of infrared "noise" that an earth-bound telescope would not have.
• fwlr 4y ago
  For some scientific purposes, eliminating 99.6% of the Earth’s atmosphere is approximately the same as eliminating 100% of it. E.g. precise imaging and characterization of nearby interstellar bodies, those projects get Hubble-tier data thousands of times cheaper. For other scientific purposes, eliminating 99.6% of the Earth’s atmosphere is approximately the same as eliminating 0% of it. E.g. trying to divine the values of physical constants in the earliest moments of the universe by looking as far into the past as possible, those projects are far too sensitive and their observations would be completely swamped by the noise of the remaining 0.4% of Earth’s atmosphere.
• cozzyd 4y ago
  For one, they can't fly for too long, and they tend to move around a lot...