Telescopes built by AMOS allow for the first time astronomers to see huge bubbles on the surface of a remote star!

In an article published in the journal Nature on 21 December 2017, a team of astronomers lead by astronomers from ULB used the four Auxiliary Telescopes (ATs) of the VLTi in Chile to observe in unprecedented details the surface of a star more than 530 light-years away. Those telescopes were built by AMOS in the years 2000. The telescopes, with a primary mirror diameter of 1.8 meter, are moving on rails so that they can be positioned at different locations. Their special design enables the light to exit at the bottom of the telescope and feed the interferometric tunnel with the photons captured from the star. The telescopes’ unique properties and the interferometric mode they support allow to continue making discoveries more than a decade after their installation.

More information on:

https://www.ulb.ac.be/actulb/index.php

https://www.nature.com/

https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1741/

https://www.eso.org/public/archives/releases/sciencepapers/eso1741/eso1741a.pdf

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