Galileo Galilei is considered the inventor of the modern telescope in 1608. He built the first telescope for astronomy in 1589-1592 and used it to observe the phases of Venus and make other discoveries. Telescopes have evolved significantly since then, becoming larger to collect more light. The largest modern ground-based telescope is the 39 meter Extremely Large Telescope built in 2010, while space telescopes like Hubble and James Webb launched in 2021 allow observation of heavenly bodies without atmospheric interference.