But even in the thin, ultra-stable atmosphere above Mauna Kea, small disturbances can blur the images captured by Keck. And so the observatories employ an ingenious system called “adaptive optics” to correct the vision of the telescopes. Lasers are beamed into the night sky above Keck, effectively creating an artificial star in the heavens. That false star becomes a kind of reference point; because the scientists know exactly what the laser should look like in the heavens were there no atmospheric distortion, they are able to get a measurement of the existing distortion by comparing the
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