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Astronomy Picture of the Day
A Laser Strike at the Galactic Center
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#102493
by
[z]Barbara Harris
@
01.08.2007 00:00
- nach oben -
A Laser Strike at the Galactic Center
Explanation:
Why are these people shooting a powerful laser into the center of our Galaxy?
Fortunately, this is not meant to be the first step in a
Galactic war
.
Rather, astronomers at the
Very Large Telescope
(VLT) site in
Chile
are trying to measure the distortions of
Earth's ever changing atmosphere
.
Constant imaging of high-altitude atoms excited by the laser -- which appear like an
artificial star
-- allow astronomers to instantly
measure atmospheric blurring
.
This information is fed back to a VLT telescope mirror which is then
slightly deformed
to minimize this blurring.
In this case, a VLT was observing
our Galaxy's center
,
and so Earth's atmospheric blurring in that direction was needed.
As for
inter-galaxy warfare
,
when viewed from
our Galaxy's center
,
no causalities are expected.
In fact, the light from
this powerful laser
would combine with light from our Sun to together appear
only as bright
as a faint and distant star.
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