Laser to the stars

This dramatic image shows the breathtaking skies over Paranal from the unique vantage point inside Unit Telescope 4 (Yepun) of ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT). The laser going up from Yepun creates an artificial guide star as part of the adaptive optics system, state-of-the-art technology which corrects the blurring effects of Earth's atmosphere to produce sharper images. The VLT is located atop Cerro Paranal, a 2600-metre high mountain in the Chilean Atacama Desert. This location offers excellent viewing conditions, a major factor in the decision to build the VLT there. The combination of these viewing conditions and the VLT's sophisticated technology offers astronomers a wonderful opportunity to study the night sky in extraordinary detail, and to learn more about the Universe in which we live.