Shape-Shifting Mirror Delivers Clearest Images of Space

A research team at the University of Arizona has captured the most precise images of the nights sky seen so far

The Magellan Advanced Optics, or "MagAO," is a specialized telescope filter that narrows details to .02 arcseconds — equivalent to seeing a baseball diamond on the moon.

The improvement is thanks to a shape-shifting secondary mirror that corrects the imperfections of Earth’s atmosphere. It can do this almost in real time — 585 points on the mirror can change their positioning as fast as 1,000 times per second. This makes for the clearest visible-light images ever recorded — twice as sharp as images from the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope. Read more...