The European Southern Observatory (ESO) has been able to capture telescopic images at visible wavelengths from the ground that are sharper than those from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The ground-based Very Large Telescope (VLT) has used an adaptive optics mode called laser tomography to capture images of distant objects in the solar system. The laser tomagraphy compensates for atmospheric turbulence resulting in more detail than anything prior. It works by stimulating sodium ions in the upper atmosphere using two pairs of lasers to calculate the turbulence and adjusting a deformable secondary mirror thousands of times per second in response.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 27 2018, @07:45PM
Plus, ground-based telescopes can only see what is in the skies above them, so to get decent galactic coverage, you need multiple telescopes across multiple latitudes. And ground-based telescopes can only see the wavelengths that make it through the atmosphere.