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In videos from some of the world's largest telescopes, we often see them shooting huge lasers into the sky? Why do they do this? This is all part of creating artificial stars. The telescope can therefore use adaptive optics to reduce the impact of the turbulent atmosphere on the images. Adaptive optics involves distorting the telescope's mirrors thousands of times per second to eliminate blurring caused by the Earth's atmosphere in images. To do this effectively, we need a very bright guide star in the part of the sky you want to observe. Not all patches have bright enough stars, so sometimes we have to make our own with these huge lasers blasted into space.

RELATED VIDEOS:
Giant Magellan Telescope: https://youtu.be/orFNSSMII3g
Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope: https://youtu.be/7R7iRNU6FE4
JWST Images Pillars of Creation: https://youtu.be/Nuu_Hxe5IZY

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