text: In 1704, Sir Isaac Newton demonstrated that white light could be split up into component colours. The subsequent history of spectroscopy led to precise measurements and provided the empirical foundations for atomic and molecular physics (Born & Wolf, 1999). Significant achievements in imaging spectroscopy are attributed to airborne instruments, particularly arising in the early 1980s and 1990s (Goetz et al., 1985; Vane et al., 1984). However, it was not until 1999 that the first imaging spectrometer was launched in space (the NASA Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS).
  Terminology and definitions evolve over time.  At one time, >10 spectral bands sufficed to justify the term "imaging spectrometer" but presently the term is seldom defined by a total minimum number of spectral bands, rather by a contiguous (or redundant) statement of spectral bands.