Laser Guide Star

For decades, Earth’s atmosphere has blurred images of both stars and galaxies, greatly restricting our ability to see the universe clearly from the ground.

But that all changed with the invention of the laser guide star.

Think of it as building an artificial star in the sky—one that helps telescopes correct atmospheric distortion in real time. It’s a technology that revolutionized ground-based astronomy, enabling discoveries from distant black holes to the discovery of planets around nearby stars.

But how do you go from a concept that once filled a building with laser equipment to something compact, reliable, and safe enough for observatories around the world?

And what role did scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory play in making that technological leap possible?

Tune in to hear the story behind one of astronomy’s most transformative innovations and the team that helped bring it to light.

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Big Ideas Lab is a Mission.org original series. 

Executive Produced by Levi Hanusch.

Sound Design, Music Edit and Mix by Daniel Brunelle. 

Story Editing by Daniel Brunelle. 

Audio Engineering and Editing by Matthew Powell. 

Written by Caroline Kidd.

Narrated by Matthew Powell. 

Video Production by Levi Hanusch.

Guests featured in this episode (in order of appearance): 

• Claire Max,  Emeritus Professor of Astronomy at UC Santa Cruz and Director of the University of California Observatories
• Deanna Pennington, Senior Scientist with the Global Security Directory, LLNL

Brought to you in partnership with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.