For astronomers, it’s a magical moment: you’re staring at a monitor, and a blurry image of a cosmological object sharpens up, revealing new details. We call this “closing the loop,” a reference to the ...

SANTA CRUZ, CA--The same technology that astronomers are using to sharpen the images from ground-based telescopes is also giving eye specialists better techniques for studying and correcting human ...

While this region of Galactic Globular Cluster M3 appears to harbor only a few fuzzy stars when viewed through conventional ground-based telescope optics (left), laser adaptive optics brings out the ...

As frustrating as having an atmosphere can be for physicists, it’s just as bad for astronomers, who have to deal with clouds, atmospheric absorption of certain wavelengths, and other irritations. One ...

The next generation of adaptive optics has arrived at the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) in Arizona, providing astronomers with a new level of image sharpness never before seen. Developed in a ...

Ground-based telescopes have long contended with atmospheric turbulence that diminishes image clarity, and the advent of adaptive optics combined with laser guide stars has been transformative in ...

In the quest for ultra-secure, long-range quantum communication, two major challenges stand in the way: the unpredictable ...