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is this still true tho? can't they just stick a big telescope lens on a satellite and get pretty detailed imagery?



You can, and satellite optics typically are a lot bigger than aerial photography optics, but the wavelength of light and the sizes of satellites you can afford to launch still impose a practical limit. For US companies, laws impose another limit.


You can and there were / are 7-8 Hubble sized telescopes in orbit, with somewhat other optics and sensors looking in the other direction. Most likely the same is true for siblings of JWT.


There is a whole lot of pesky athmospheric interference limiting how much detail you can actually resolve.




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