Observatories in Space

Abstract

Review, 50 pages, 46 Figures, in Astronomy and Astrophysics 2010, [Eds. Oddbjorn Engvold, Rolf Stabell, Bozena Czerny, John Lattanzio], in Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), Developed under the Auspices of the UNESCO, Eolss Publishers, Oxford, UK, [http://www.eolss.net]Review, 50 pages, 46 Figures, in Astronomy and Astrophysics 2010, [Eds. Oddbjorn Engvold, Rolf Stabell, Bozena Czerny, John Lattanzio], in Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), Developed under the Auspices of the UNESCO, Eolss Publishers, Oxford, UK, [http://www.eolss.net]Space observatories are having major impacts on our knowledge of the Universe, from the Solar neighborhood to the cosmological background, opening many new windows out of reach to ground-based observatories. Celestial objects emit all over the electromagnetic spectrum, and the Earth's atmosphere blocks a large part of them. Moreover, space offers a very stable environment from where the whole sky can be observed with no (or very little) perturbations, providing new observing possibilities. This chapter presents a few striking examples of astrophysics space observatories and of major results spanning from the Solar neighborhood and our Galaxy to external galaxies, quasars and the cosmological background