Top 10 Largest Telescopes in The World

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Largest Telescopes in The World

Telescope is an optical instrument which helps to look distant objects appear magnified by using an arrangement of lenses or curved mirrors and lenses, or various devices used to observe distant objects by their emission, absorption, or reflection of electromagnetic radiation. This term telescope was coined in 1611 by a Greek mathematician Giovanni Demisiani for one of Galileo Galilei’s instruments showcased at a banquet at the Accademia dei Lincei.

With the help of Telescopes, People can look at stars and galaxies closely. It functions by observing the visible light, which is a type of electromagnetic radiation, from objects which are placed far away and with using that light, an image gets created. This proves to be very useful particularly for scientists and astronomers. Although Galileo is not the inventor of the first telescope but he was closely associated with that and he was the first person to observe the sky in night using the telescope which led to the discovery of Milky Way in 1610.

Largest Telescopes in The World: Various kinds of Telescopes:

Telescopes are categorized on the basis of the wavelengths of light they detect:

X-ray telescopes (shorter wavelengths than ultraviolet light)
Ultraviolet telescopes (shorter wavelengths than visible light)
Optical telescopes (visible light)
Infrared telescopes (longer wavelengths than visible light)
Submillimetre telescopes (longer wavelengths than infrared light)
Fresnel Imager (an optical lens technology)
X-ray optics (optics for certain X-ray wavelengths)

Top 10 Largest Telescopes in the World

The list of Top 10 Biggest Telescope in the World along with their names and names of observatory, location, built year and their aperture size are discussed below in descending order:

Sr. No.	Name of Telescope and observatory	Built year	Location	Aperture Size
1.	Gran Telescopio Canarias	2009	Canary Islands, Spain	409 inches
2.	Keck 1 and Keck 2, Mauna Kea Observatory	1993 and 1996 (respectively)	Hawaii, U.S.A	394 inches each
3.	SALT, South African Astronomical Observatory	2005	Northern Cape, South Africa	362 inches
4.	LBT, Mount Graham Observatory	2004	Arizona, U.S.A	330 inches
5.	Subaru, Mauna Kea Observatory	1999	Hawaii, U.S.A	323 inches
6.	Antu, Paranal Observatory	1998	Chile	323 inches
7.	Kueyen, Paranal Observatory	1999	Chile	323 inches
8.	Melipal, Paranal Observatory	2000	Chile	323 inches
9.	Yepun, Paranal Observatory	2001	Chile	323 inches
10.	Gemini South, Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory	2001	Chile	318 inches