Category: adaptive optics

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 of the less obvious effects is the distortion caused by air at different temperatures turbulently mixing. To correct for this, some larger observatories use […]
It’s sometimes easy to forget that the light in the sky is an actual star. With how reliable it is and how busy we tend to be as humans, we can take that incredible fact and stow it away and largely go on with our lives unaffected. But our star is the thing that gives […]