Free Astronomy Magazine January-February 2026

JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2026 and complex upgrade to ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI). GRAVITY+ unlocks a greater observing power and a much wider sky coverage for the VLTI than pre- viously possible. “This is a very im- portant milestone for a facility that is completely unique in the world,” Laser trial run kickstarts new era of interferometry by ESO Bárbara Ferreira each used to create an artificial star, which astronomers use to measure and then correct the blur caused by Earth's atmosphere. The striking launch of these lasers, one from each of the eight-metre telescopes at Paranal, is a significant milestone of the GRAVITY+ project — a large F our lasers were projected into the skies above the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO’s) Paranal site in Chile. The lasers are