Only the visual and radio bands of the electromagnetic spectrum pass through Earth's atmosphere relatively unhindered. For everything else, gamma-ray. X-ray, ultraviolet, and infrared, observations of space are much better from above Earth's atmosphere.
The first real telescope in space was Orbiting Solar Observatory-1 (OSO-1), which was launched into a low Earth orbit on March 7, 1962, from Cape Canaveral. The lower portion rditated every two seconds, and the upper portion was fixed in space, using sun sensors and servomotors to point instruments accurately at the solar disc. The main aim was to observe solar flares—extremely violent explosions that occur near sunspots on the solar surface—in the gamma-ray, X- ray, and ultraviolet wavelengths. The spinning part of the spacecraft searched the whole sky for stellar gamma-ray sources. After three months and over 1,000 orbits the effectiveness of OSO-1 was greatly reduced when the United States tested a nuclear device at
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