There can hardly be an object in history that has done more to revolutionise human understanding of our place in the universe than the humble telescope. In the hands of Galileo and Copernicus traditional cosmologies were rendered obsolete and our own view of the solar system and wider universe began to form.
Since then, telescopes have become increasingly powerful. In the twentieth century, optical telescopes were joined by immensely powerful radio telescopes and instruments capable of picking up signals on other wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum to provide formerly unimaginable access to ever more remote parts of the universe. By the twenty-first century, optical and radio telescopes were penetrating unimaginable horizons of time and space. In their wake lay the devastated traditions of where human beings stand in the universe.
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