Hubble Space Telescope

Hubble Space Telescope has captured over 1.5 million observations since 1990, using its 2.4-meter mirror to measure the universe's expansion rate at 73 kilometers per second per megaparsec. This longevity and precision outperform #3 LIGO in imaging cosmic history, providing images that revolutionized astronomy and confirmed supermassive black holes in galaxies 13 billion light-years away. The telescope's data has been cited in more than 10,000 peer-reviewed papers, making it cheaper than the typical rival space observatory at a total cost of $2.5 billion over 30 years. Its ability to detect faint galaxies has resolved details 50 times finer than ground-based telescopes.