Free Astronomy Magazine January-February 2026

16 JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2026 ASTRO PUBLISHING T his image, one of the first obtained with VLTI/GRAVITY+ working with four lasers, shows a binary star in the central region of the Tarantula Nebula, a star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud. The binary was originally thought to be an ex- tremely massive star, but the new observations now reveal that it is a binary. This showcases the stunning capabilities and sci- entific potential of the upgraded VLTI. The background image is a wide-field view of the Tarantula nebula taken with the 1.5 Danish telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory. The first inset shows a closeup of the central stellar cluster obtained with ESO’s Very Large Telescope at Paranal Observatory. We then see an even closer look taken with the GRAVITY+ acquisition camera, and finally the binary star itself. The small ellipse in this last inset represents the resolution of GRAVITY+. [ESO/GRAVITY+ Collabora- tion. Background images: ESO/IDA/Danish 1.5 m/R. Gendler, C. C. Thöne, C. Féron, and J.-E. Ovaldsen/P. Crowther/C.J. Evan]