The Role of Astronomy in Space Exploration

Space study, the scientific observation of celestial objects and space, is inherently tied to space exploration. From the first signals of stars and planets to navigate the sea and divide the time into days and nights to the current telescope that explores the farthest space and discovers new planets, astronomy allows and encourages space exploration.

Resources on the ground have provided observers with profound insights into the chemical content of the planets’ atmospheres, the presence of exoplanets around distant stars and the images of galaxies billions of years old. This has significantly enriched our knowledge about the formation and development of the various bodies in the universe as well as their structures. The discoveries in astronomy are always half-sweet because they give birth to more questions and the need to move forward to more distant space objects using better instruments.

Ground-based observatories and large space-based telescopes such as the Hubble Space Telescope have provided astronomy with excellent imaging not affected by the terrestrial atmosphere. With its ability to focus on objects from space, Hubble has given astronomers details on the life cycle of stars, weather conditions on some planets in the solar system and some of our early universe. Its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, launched in 2021, uses Infrared imaging for a deeper…