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Astronomy Today

Gamma-Ray Space Telescopes

What were the first gamma-ray telescopes?

Early space telescopes detected some gamma rays, even though they were very inefficient and imprecise. Explorer XI in 1961 detected a tiny gamma-ray flux. The third of the Orbiting Solar Observatory satellites (OSO-3) was used to detect astronomical gamma rays in 1967; and SAS-2 was also a valuable, early gamma-ray observatory that was launched in 1972.