Breakthrough In Telescopes Opens New Window On Universe

Earth based telescopes are being improved to the point that they can take images of the universe as clear as those available from the Hubble.

We've all seen the twinkling stars. The twinkling is caused by heat from the ground rising through the air. The twinkling is pretty, but it's a major source of distortion for ground based telescopes trying to explore the universe.

In a new development in optics, engineers have learned how to remove the distorting twinkling from ground based telescopes. This advance leads to an image quality that competes with images taken from the Hubble telescope, which is orbiting the Earth above the atmosphere.

This technology is called "laser adaptive optics". Hundreds of adapters on the back of the telescope mirror warp the mirror just enough to offset the distorting effect of the atmosphere.

observatory telescope
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