{"id":297064,"date":"2025-11-20T13:00:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T13:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/297064\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T13:00:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T13:00:16","slug":"lasers-target-the-tarantula-nebula-with-artificial-stars-photo-of-the-day-for-nov-19-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/297064\/","title":{"rendered":"Lasers target the Tarantula Nebula with ‘artificial stars’ photo of the day for Nov. 19, 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently, the Very Large Telescope<\/a> (VLT) used its powerful interferometer, also called the VLTI,<\/a> as part of its GRAVITY+<\/a> upgrade to the entire system.<\/p>\n

What is it?<\/p>\n

The VLT is one of the world\u2019s most advanced optical observatories, operated by the European Southern Observatory (ESO<\/a>) in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. The VLT consists of four 27-foot (8.2-meter) telescopes that can work together as a single system through the VLTI, combining their light to achieve the resolving power of a much larger telescope. This allows astronomers to distinguish fine details in distant cosmic objects, down to features hundreds of times smaller than what can be seen with a single telescope alone.<\/p>\n

Where is it?<\/p>\n

While this image was captured in Chile, the laser beams were targeted at a point 56 miles (90 kilometers) above Earth\u2019s surface.<\/p>\n

Best picks for you<\/p>\n

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The lasers from the VLTI were targeted at the Tarantula Nebula. (Image credit: ESO\/A. Berdeu)Why is it amazing?<\/p>\n

The four beams produced bright artificial \u201cstars,” which act as guides to help astronomers correct for the distortions caused by Earth\u2019s atmosphere<\/a>, a process called adaptive optics.<\/a> By removing this natural blur, the VLTI can produce much sharper and more detailed images.<\/p>\n

The team was focusing on the Tarantula Nebula,<\/a> located in the Large Magellanic Cloud<\/a>, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way<\/a> about 160,000 light-years away. The nebula is a cosmic nursery where some of the most massive and luminous stars known are born, making it an ideal target for testing the improved precision and sensitivity of the GRAVITY+ system. Observing this region helps astronomers study how massive stars form and evolve, and how their intense radiation and winds shape the surrounding interstellar environment.<\/p>\n

Want to learn more?<\/p>\n

You can learn more about the Large Magellanic Cloud<\/a> and ground-based telescopes.<\/a><\/p>\n

Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Recently, the Very Large Telescope (VLT) used its powerful interferometer, also called the VLTI, as part of its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297065,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[64,63,128,285],"class_list":{"0":"post-297064","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}