It might look like we started a space war, but we didn't. This isn't a scene from Star Wars either. What we're looking at is the Tarantula Nebula. And those beams come from the lasers installed on the telescopes that comprise ESO's Very Large Telescope Interferometer.
The VLTI combines the light from several telescopes to create a “virtual” telescope with a mirror as large as the separation between them, allowing astronomers to discern very small details. For the telescopes to combine their light properly, we need to correct the distortions introduced by atmospheric turbulence.
In November 2025, as part of an extensive upgrade called GRAVITY+, new lasers were installed on the 8-m telescopes that comprise the VLTI. Each laser in this image comes from a different telescope, all pointing at the same target. The lasers excite sodium atoms high up in Earth’s atmosphere, creating artificial stars that can be seen here at the end of the laser beams. These stars are then used to measure atmospheric turbulence in real time.
The Tarantula Nebula was one of the first targets of this new system. This Picture of the Week is not itself a VLTI image of the target, but a photograph taken outside of the telescopes by astronomer Anthony Berdeu, who took part in the GRAVITY+ testing activities. This image beautifully bridges near and far-away objects: the lasers launched by the four telescopes, the artificial stars they create 90 km above the ground, and the Tarantula Nebula, nestled in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy orbiting the Milky Way some 160 000 light-years away.
Credit:
A. Berdeu/ESO
About the Image
| Id: | potw2616a |
| Type: | Observation |
| Release date: | 20 April 2026, 06:00 |
| Size: | 4909 x 3682 px |
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