New Lasers for a Gigantic Virtual Telescope—A New Era for Interferometry | ESO

New Lasers for a Gigantic Virtual Telescope—A New Era for Interferometry | ESO

"We have been working towards this for decades, and now the time has finally come. Last week, the European Southern Observatory’s Paranal Observatory was host to a show unlike any other as four lasers, one from each of the 8-meter telescopes of the Very Large Telescope (VLT), were projected into the skies. All in the name of science, of course."

"In this Chasing Starlight episode, we will explore GRAVITY+, a massive upgrade to the European Southern Observatory’s VLT Interferometer and how new lasers are opening up the southern sky to this facility."

GRAVITY+ was carried out by a consortium led by the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics. Principal Investigator (PI): Frank Eisenhauer

Video Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)
Duration: 6 minutes
Release Date: Nov. 10, 2025

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