Here's how mankind learned to see the stars

The telescope began as a relatively simple device, born out of optical experimentation.

It combined a series of lenses and mirrors to collect and magnify light, allowing the user to see far away objects.

Over the last few centuries , the telescope has evolved to capture images of increasingly distant objects with incredible detail.

Early telescopes were all refracting telescopes of the kind Galileo made.

The idea of using mirrors instead of lenses had already entered the collective consciousness during the 1600s .

Today 's largest ground-based telescope is a matter of some debate, but they are huge by comparison to early iterations.

In 2017 , astronomers used the LBT to glimpse the OSIRIS -REx spacecraft from 7 million miles away.

Astronomers have built telescopes capable of "seeing" infrared, ultraviolet, X-ray, and gamma ray light sources.

The Earth 's atmosphere blocks most cosmic infrared radiation, so astronomers need to get outside of the atmosphere.

The SOFIA observatory, short for Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy , operated from 2010 to 2022 as a joint effort between NASA and DLR , the German Space Agency .