Night laser

The four Unit Telescopes of ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) observe the night sky above the Paranal Observatory that is their home. In the foreground, Unit Telescope 4 (Yepun) sends up a laser to create an artificial guide star. This is part of the state-of-the-art Adaptive Optics system, which corrects the blurring effects of Earth's atmosphere, creating sharper images and allowing astronomers to study the Universe in greater detail. The other three Unit Telescopes pictured are, from left to right: Antu, Kueyen and Melipal. The names of the unit telescopes are meaningful words for astronomical objects in the Mapuche language.