There's a limit to how big you can make a telescope on Earth because it's subject to gravity. The largest radio telescope in the world is so large you could not hold it up and steer it. You have to wait for stuff to drift into its field of view just to observe it. In space, there are no such things as unsterable materials like glass or wire mesh.
In this Cosmic Queries episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson answers fan questions about radio and microwave telescopes, from the Hubble to the VLA to the James Webb Space Telescope.
Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.