All articles tagged with #adaptive optics
Chinese researchers demonstrated a 1 Gbps optical downlink from a geostationary satellite about 36,000 km away using a 2-watt laser and a ground receiver built to correct atmospheric distortion, achieving higher speeds than Starlink and showing how adaptive optics plus multi-plane light conversion can recover usable data through turbulence.
Space.com highlights a European Southern Observatory photo showing the Milky Way over Chile’s Paranal Observatory while four Unit Telescopes of the Very Large Telescope fire lasers high in the atmosphere to create artificial guide stars. These glow-displays let adaptive optics systems correct for Earth’s atmospheric blur in real time, sharpening observations. The UTs Antu, Kueyen, Yepun and Melipal work together (Melipal’s laser use dates to 2016; the other three were added in December 2025 to support VLTI and GRAVITY+), showcasing the VLT’s capability to peer deeper into the universe as lasers illuminate the sky above Chile.
The article discusses the development of a deformable mirror used in adaptive optics systems to correct atmospheric distortions in astronomy. It details the construction of the mirror with a quartz glass face, actuators made of copper wire coils and magnets, and the improvements made to increase control and precision, enabling high-resolution solar imaging.
Astronomers have captured the first direct photo of a baby planet, WISPIT 2b, forming inside a dusty disk around a young star using advanced adaptive optics, providing new insights into planet formation and confirming that protoplanets can create gaps in protoplanetary disks.
New high-resolution images of the Sun's corona, achieved through advanced adaptive optics technology, reveal unprecedented fine structures, potentially unlocking answers to longstanding questions like the coronal heating problem and solar eruptions. This breakthrough, led by the National Solar Observatory, enhances ground-based solar observation capabilities and promises to revolutionize solar physics research.
Scientists have achieved the sharpest-ever images of the sun's corona using advanced adaptive optics, revealing new features like delicate coronal rain, a rapidly forming plasma 'plasmoid', and dynamic solar prominences, which could help solve longstanding mysteries about solar heating and space weather phenomena.
New coronal adaptive optics technology has enabled unprecedented high-resolution images of the sun's corona, revealing fine structures, turbulent flows, and phenomena like coronal rain, which could lead to breakthroughs in understanding solar activity and space weather. The system, installed at the Big Bear Solar Observatory, corrects atmospheric turbulence, allowing for detailed observation of the sun's outer atmosphere and promising future applications at larger telescopes.
Over the past 25 years, advancements in lightweight mirror technology and segmented mirrors have led to the construction of mega-telescopes, significantly enhancing our ability to explore the universe. These telescopes, such as the Keck Observatory and the Very Large Telescope, have enabled groundbreaking discoveries, including the confirmation of a supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way and the first direct image of an exoplanet. Future projects like the Extremely Large Telescope aim to further our understanding, although challenges such as climate change and satellite constellations pose potential threats to ground-based astronomy.
Researchers at the University of Rochester used adaptive optics to identify rare retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) in the human fovea, challenging existing theories of color perception based on three types of cone photoreceptors. These non-cardinal RGCs may play a role in creating more nuanced color perception, potentially leading to advanced vision restoration techniques and improved retinal prosthetic designs. The study received support from prestigious institutions and could have a significant impact on vision science.
Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have utilized artificial intelligence (AI) to significantly improve the speed and quality of retinal imaging, making it 100 times faster and enhancing image contrast 3.5-fold. By integrating AI with adaptive optics optical coherence tomography (OCT), the new method, called parallel discriminator generative adverbial network (P-GAN), successfully de-speckles retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) images, providing a better tool for evaluating age-related macular degeneration and other retinal diseases. This advancement is expected to make AO imaging more accessible for routine clinical applications and studies aimed at understanding blinding retinal diseases.
Ground-based astronomers are overcoming Earth's atmosphere by using large, powerful telescopes placed in optimal locations and employing adaptive optics. Adaptive optics systems compensate for atmospheric distortion by creating artificial guide stars and using deformable mirrors to un-distort incoming light. This technology has allowed ground-based telescopes to outperform space-based telescopes in imaging quality, making ground-based astronomy a cost-effective and superior option for high-quality astronomical imaging.
Researchers have developed a method to correct aberrated light coming out of a noisy environment by pairing it with another unstructured beam of light that experienced the same aberration. Using difference frequency generation in a nonlinear crystal, the structured beam is automatically restored without the need for knowledge of the aberration, enabling a nonlinear form of adaptive optics that works at the speed of light. This breakthrough has the potential to be integrated into systems for diverse applications, such as communications, imaging, and optical trapping, and also allows for communication and detection with different wavelengths.
Astronomers at the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii are using adaptive optics and a yellow laser to create an "artificial star" in the Earth's atmosphere, allowing the telescope to correct for the distortions caused by atmospheric turbulence. This technology enables ground-based telescopes to achieve resolutions comparable to space-based telescopes like the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescope, potentially leading to higher-resolution images of stars, planets, and galaxies, as well as the direct imaging of exoplanets.
Next-generation space telescopes, such as the James Webb Space Telescope and ground-based arrays like the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), are incorporating deformable mirrors (DMs) to directly image exoplanets and study their atmospheres. DMs can correct for imperfections in the telescope and remove starlight contamination, allowing for the detection and characterization of smaller rocky exoplanets. NASA is actively developing DM technology through its Deformable Mirror Technology project, with plans to demonstrate their effectiveness on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope in 2027. The lessons learned will contribute to the development of DMs for the proposed Habitable Worlds Observatory (HabEx) mission, which aims to directly image planetary systems around Sun-like stars.
The Giant Magellan Telescope, one of the world's largest ground-based telescopes, is being built to image planets in other star systems to see if they are Earth-like and habitable. Equipped with a "Large Earth Finder" and "Near-Infrared Spectrograph," it will be able to directly image exoplanets and take spectra of their atmospheres to look for biosignatures. The telescope will have the widest field of view and best image quality of any extremely large telescope, and will work in conjunction with the James Webb Space Telescope and the Vera Rubin Observatory to extend a golden age of space and ground-based observing.