Wide Field Camera 3: Hubble’s advanced eye

For years the most powerful lenses staring out into the cosmos were the Wide Field and Planetary Camera and Wide Field and Planetary Camera

2. As the years passed, one would replace the other, until 2009, when NASA installed one of the last instruments to be added to the observatory before it’s replaced by the James Webb Space Telescope. The WFC3 is still impressive, utilising two independent light paths: an optical channel that takes images from 200 to 1,000 nanometres and a near-infrared detector array that covers the wavelength range from 850 to 1,700 nanometres.