Lasers take aim at a galaxy far, far away | Space photo of the day for May 4, 2026

Lasers on the ESO's Very Large Telescope Interferometer beam into the sky towards the Tarantula Nebula to create "artificial stars" that help astronomers measure and account for atmospheric turbulence. (Image credit: A. Berdeu/ESO) Looking like a scene out of a "Star Wars" title crawl, this photograph from the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) atop Cerro Paranal in Chile's Atacama Desert showcases some advanced techniques astronomers use to look …