Gemini_and_its_Laser_Beam.jpg
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Summary
| Description |
English:
A beam of light shoots into the night sky. Its origin is Gemini North, one of the twin telescopes that make up the international Gemini Observatory, a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab. The light is in fact a laser guide star, and it serves a remarkable purpose. The laser guide star shoots about 90 kilometers (56 miles) into the sky, where it creates five faint artificial stars. These artificial stars are used as a reference by Gemini North, to allow the telescope tocorrect for some of the turbulence of Earth’s atmosphere.
The artificial stars are far too faint to be seen by human eyes. The laser beam itself is visible, but not at large distances. So as striking as this image is, the inhabitants of Hawai‘i are not disturbed by a night sky filled with bright laser beams!
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| Date | |
| Source | https://noirlab.edu/public/images/iotw2118a/ |
| Author | International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. Chu |
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This media was created by the
National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory (NOIRLab)
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Their website states : "Unless specifically noted, the images, videos, and music distributed on the public NOIRLab website, along with the texts of press releases, announcements, images of the week and captions; are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , and may on a non-exclusive basis be reproduced without fee provided the credit is clear and visible." To the uploader : You must provide a link (URL) to the original file and the authorship information if available. |
This file is licensed under the
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