The laser beams of our Very Large Telescope pierce the star-filled sky of the Atacama Desert in #Chile

The lasers create artificial "stars" in the atmosphere, about 90 km above the ground, which then act as guides. By studying how they are blurred by the atmosphere, the telescope's deformable secondary mirror quickly reshapes itself in real time, yielding very sharp images. It’s almost as good as sending the VLT up into space!

Learn more: https://www.eso.org/public/images/potw2516a/

📷 ESO/A. de Burgos Sierra

#astrodon #astronomy #astrophysics #space #science