Combining telescopes for more detailed images

Observations by telescopes such as ALMA are made in a part of the electromagnetic spectrum called the millimetre. Images taken at shorter wavelengths are clearly sharper, but there are limits to the size of the wavelengths we can process. In 2024, researchers obtained the highest angular resolution observations ever taken from the ground, at 0.87 millimetres.

This animation was originally produced for an ESO Chasing Starlight episode on the sharpest ground-based observations yet.