The Stunning Discoveries of the World's Largest Telescope | VLT

How the Very Large Telescope works and how its discoveries about Sagittarius A* lead to a Nobel Physics Prize. Get a razor that will last you a lifetime from Henson Shaving here: bit.ly/2YS4SPN To get the 100 pk of blades for free, make sure to add it to your shopping cart, and use the code ASTRUM.
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#blackholes #eso #astrum
adaptive optics, vlt, interferometry, eso 2023

[@Aniso442]

That video of the stars circling the black hole was absolutely breath taking. I cant wait for bigger and better telescopes to further reveal the universe to us.

[@GerinoMorn]

Imagine orbiting one of those stars... it must be mindboggling

[@Aniso442]

@@GerinoMorn right? We live in such a cool and unique universe! All the possibilities are so exciting!

[@Dango428]

Havent watched the video yet, but that just sounds like a galaxy lol Edit after watching: I was kind of right

[@davidtatro7457]

The first time l saw the video which shows the zoom-in to the heart of the galaxy and then cuts to the time lapse of the stars circling Sag A*, it literally blew my mind. Ok, let's be honest here. It also happened the 2nd time, and the 3rd time, and the 4th time....

[@nyletanner942]

​

[@carpemkarzi]

To be honest the little ‘movie’ of the stars swarming around A* is just jaw dropping given the distance and time involved. Its just..I have no words…

[@andyman8352]

agreed, that part was just absolutely amazing. I had no idea the VLT had been used for such observations.

[@faeriedragon348]

Don’t forget the size and mass of those objects.

[@t.j.payeur5331]

Well said...

[@Wild-Eye]

It breaks the brain.

[@dmeemd7787]

That data is still one of the most incredible things I will ever seen!!!

[@Equulai]

I visited the VLT site and La Silla site 15 years ago. It was a breathtaking experience and awe-inspiring.

[@davidpeters3857]

Fantastic

[@billmilosz]

Wow! Just to get there is kind of mind boggling.... then to see the instruments...!!!! I can't even.....

[@JenniferA886]

Agreed, it’s on my list

[@2009ccastillo]

In deed and let's not forget they are in Chile❤😊 such a beautiful country...

[@jadeybabes33]

The clips of the stars going around the black hole were utterly incredible to watch - I'd never seen this before! Considering how big they are and the distances involved - this just blows my mind.

[@SteedRuckus]

Imagine a "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" final question: Which telescope is scheduled to come online in 2025? A. Large Telescope B. Very Large Telescope C. Extremely Large Telescope D. Ridiculously Large Telescope

[@fajaradi1223]

Not that large telescope

[@andyman8352]

It will be the Ludicrously Large Telescope. And it will be painted with a plaid pattern.

[@ZEROmg13]

i would like to call a friend......hey Alex....lol

[@kadourimdou43]

The Absolutely Spectacularly Humungous Gigantically Very Large Massive Telescope. A question in 2035, most likely.

[@schulhausgarten1371]

​@@andyman8352 To make it harder to jam it.

[@KurtQuad]

I wouldn't mind some deeper dives into the engineering and technology behind the VLT. I could only imagine how amazing an in-depth guided tour of that facility would be. Love the content!

[@o0PurpleToast0o]

You have such a beautiful and awe-inspiring way of communicating these science and engineering topics. Keep up the great work!

[@cykkm]

To me, the most mindblowing part of the VLT engineering has been its atmospheric-adaptive optics. Twinkle, twinkle, little star, and multi-ton mirrors deform just right in real time to compensate for your twinkling in response! I'm an engineering type, a natural-born tinkerer, despite my working in theoretical science; and this system, designed for a very quick response to changing atmospheric distortions, which are first-class chaotic¹, scale-free and unpredictable, is a nearly unimaginable feat of control system engineering. Polishing mirrors and balancing the construction on bearing is a significant achievement, but you do it once. But constantly reshaping the mirrors with a response time in milliseconds is a whole another step up in technology! ________ ¹ Incidentally, it was an attempt to model weather phenomena by the MIT atmospheric scientist Edward Lorenz² in the 1960s that led to the discovery of a phenomenon called the chaotic behavior in the real world. He printed so called “checkpoint” values in his numeric simulation with 6 digits after decimal point every hour, because the computer crashed once in a while during his many-months-long simulation (it was the early '60s, and computers were slow), so that he could type them in and continue the simulation from the last printed result. Once he decided to verify that his checkpoints are correct and won't invalidate his many months of work because of a bug. He printed the current numbers, restarted the simulation from an hour-old checkpoint numbers and... got an entirely different set of numbers in an hour! After excluding all sources of error, it was concluded that the culprit was a tiny difference between current simulation step numbers, taken from the previous step directly inside computation, and those printed as a checkpoint. The error-the difference between them-was no more than 1/2 of a millionth in their relative values! In a public lecture he now-famously explained this with an example: a flap of butterfly's wings in Brazil may cause a hurricane in Texas. This stunning fact caught on, and has become known as the “butterfly effect.” This is also why a 10-day weather forecast rarely comes true: deterministic, rigorous equations produce divergent results when calculated in a feedback loop, last computed output used as the next timestep input, since they cannot be computed with an infinite precision on the real computer: all computers are limited to only so many digits of precision. Mathematical chaos is a regime that exponentially amplifies every tiny error at each numeric calculation step. Theoretically this behaviour was already known to Poincare, but it had been the first time that it hit us hard in practice: atmosphere and weather is impossible to predict precisely, and the prediction error grows exponentially. ² Not to be confused with and unrelated to Hendrik Lorenz of the special relativistic Lorenz transform fame, who had lived a century earlier.

[@RedisFun2]

I feel like I got more science history in this comment then in a several hundred page thesis.... Whoa!

[@Baldevi]

I really enjoed this video, and would certainly love more videos of ESO and VLT. ESO has been huge in Astrophysics, both on the ground and in orbit. Fascinating subject, ESO, VLT, and the other programs ESO is an integral part of.

[@dca73]

YES!!! More on the VLT please!

[@lovelylady2787]

This is amazing how we keep on coming up with more advanced ways to prove our own genius! Science is amazing that way.

[@SuperYtc1]

You are not as genius or as important as you think.

[@acerbicatheist2893]

Rein your ego in a wee bit pease sweetie darling....alright...?!

[@fdsfds7339]

​@@SuperYtc1 that's exactly what the planet Uranus would say

[@durden91tyler]

@@SuperYtc1 you're projecting.

[@lanalosangeles]

Note: timestamp 9:30 the closed caption "as shown by Karl Schwarzschild in 1916" is correct; narrator audio error of "as shown by Karl Schwarzchild in 1619". Fantastic, informative video. Thanks!

[@angelalewis3645]

The engineering of the whole VLT complex is astounding. It makes me wonder what I am doing with my life. Why am I working on such little projects when such great things are being built? :)

[@user-tz3zn2kz8w]

You are one of my favorite channels to see about anything. My daughter has always like astronomy and knew the planet names by the time she was 5 years old. And she knew the position of them so you couldn't confuse her. So when you and your team come out with a new video we see it as a treat and watch it together (she's bit older now).

[@iantait309]

Treasure your time with her they grow so quickly.

[@angelalewis3645]

That’s so great! Thank you for sharing! ❤

[@Felixff199]

The scale of our universe is staggering! To see stars orbiting a black hole is certainly fascinating!

[@Alexandra-Rex]

That transition to the ad was hilarious! Well done!

[@jasonpatterson8091]

The primary benefit of interferometry is not light amplification - that's a side bonus that is the result of simply using multiple telescopes at the same time. It's *all* about resolution; when interferometry is used it's as if all of the individual telescopes are part of a larger telescope viewing the same thing and the same time. This has been possible for decades with radio telescopes (like the VLA and others, now scaled up to global networks) but doing it with visible light is a major technological feat.

[@ScandalistRick]

When I see engineering like this, I am simply in awe of the minds that were able to make it happen. Makes me feel... stupid I guess lol

[@Earthneedsado-over177]

Engineering geniuses don't make you stupid, just admire their genius.

[@tiger1701]

Humans are awesome!

[@SisypheanRoller]

The best part is that even the engineers themselves are working in a collaborative fashion. Modern artifacts of engineering are so complex that no single person can hold it all in their head.

[@kindlin]

As an engineer, I can assure you that each and every part is understandable to most people, but the way the whole thing interacts together is sometimes very hard to wrap your mind around, for anybody. But we carefully build these mathematical models that can be analyzed for everything we need to know. It can take months for a whole group to build a complex model, and it doesn't take a knowledge or math genius to do it, more like someone that can organize and delegate well. Someone that is patient enough to go through all the many, NUMEROUS inputs and outputs and make sure everything _looks_ and _feels_ right.

[@jensonee]

i've talked to people at the Atacama telescope sites when i worked at NASA, on the wide area network. i've seen the night sky far away from city lights. amazing. i'd love to go to the Atacoma desert just to see the desert, the night sky and the telescopes.

[@kevins7030]

Call the next one the OverWhelmingly Large telescope and then you can say that an OWL is peering into the night.

[@OldMtnGeezer]

Good one! 🤣

[@ericgulseth74]

The science done with the tracking of stellar orbits around our galactic nucleus is probably my most favorite ever done. It sits right at the junction of human scale understanding and something so big it's hard to fathom. Watching stars, like our sun, orbit like our earth and moon, yet at ridiculous speeds. My mind was blown when I was reading about this in the mid 90s in college and it's cool to have lived long enough to see the work come to fruition.

[@petriepretorius4085]

more! about VLT and every other observatories please...this is such amazing technology! thank you Alex...

[@do1029ug]

I had not heard about the VLT's role in imaging the dance of stars about our supermassive black hole, nor that one of those stars was clocked at over 2% of the speed of light. Thanks so much for this update!

[@michaeldeierhoi4096]

Thanks for posting this interesting video about the VLT. It was to the point without hype and cited specific researchers and their findings. Keep up this kind of work.

[@Templar7832]

Being sucked into near a black hole at 2.2%c from 20,000,000,000 miles away is insane! Just shows you right there how powerful black holes are. Amazing. Great Vid Alex

[@graemep.1316]

Thank you for the incredible and painstaking amount of detail you put into your edit Alex!!🎉

[@JellyLancelot]

I just love the naming of most of these technologies across the scientific community. Its so silly and really humanises what can be such relentlessly technical complex systems.

[@joecarranco]

What a wonderful glimpse into something that seems so magical to me. This was a well put together video explaining how it all works. Many thanks!!

[@2000sborton]

Thank you for highlighting the important work being done with this array. With so much attention being given to the Hubble and now James Webb it is easy to forget about the truly awesome earth based telescopes that exist.

[@davidtatro7457]

This is one of the most fascinating science videos l have seen in recent months. We've probably all seen many references to the VLT, but I've never before seen a video strictly about its history and how it works. Bravo for a terrific and inspiring video, and l would absolutely love it if you made further videos about VLT and its contributions to science.

[@Dudleymiddleton]

Thank you for another fantastic, interesting and beautiful video, Alex!

[@Beryllahawk]

Gorgeous. This might seem like a "step back," but I'd really appreciate a video explaining the kinds of telescopes - such as Cassegrain - and why it matters which sort is being used. I feel like it would be both very helpful to those of us that are perhaps a little less well read - and it would inform any further discussions of telescopes.

[@laurapope3685]

That was so awesome! Thanks for making such an informative and entertaining video! Until next time, hope y'all have a great day!

[@randalc6118]

Thank you Alex. Please keep up the fantastic work. Cannot get enough of your material

[@aternias]

MORE ON VLT AND MORE ON OTHER SPACE/GROUND TELESCOPES AND THEIR DISCOVERIES PLEASE!!

[@sergemenardi8219]

Beautiful report. Just a correction about NACO and NAOMI: the latter is an AO for Auxilliary Telescopes used only for interferometry. The 2nd generation instrument to study exoplanets is SPHERE (with a high contrast AO and coronograph)

[@Gin-toki]

Great video, thanks! I would definetly love to hear more of VLT, perhaps more about the complex itself, but of course also about it's various discoveries :)

[@bran2630]

9:30 You said "Karl Schwarzschild in 1619" instead of 1916. Great video, thanks!

[@Rheinhard]

I was just about to comment that it seems Schwarzschild was a LOT older than I had previously thought!! 😜

[@StreetComp]

Thanks for an excellent video and I’m all for more about VLT and other telescopes.

[@thomasdickson35]

@Astrum What a time to be alive! Thanks for making videos like this. Your voice is excellent btw. Our collective minds will surely continue to be boggled by the seemingly exponential speed of progress. I can't wait!

[@forgotten_world]

Amazing and breathtaking video! Please, more content about the VLT and ESO's future.

[@cheradenine1980]

The technological mastery of these things is breathtaking

[@FoolHardyQueso]

Awesome new video about the vlt, the first one is one of my favorites on this channel. Keep em coming.

[@BytebroUK]

That was one of the most interesting 'scope vids I've seen for a while. VLT still doing amazing work.

[@boltonky]

Thanks for the upload, Crazy reminder that looking at the sky takes lifetimes and what we will see in our lifetime is just a blip (i can only imagine if black holes are the end and beginning of space as we know considering were does all the energy go they absorb)

[@biggles258]

Lovely job of pulling together lots of different strands of information.

[@Capt_Caveman205]

The VLT and its discoveries are fascinating and id love to hear more about them as well as the XLT.

Love this vid. Omce again, great work, you are one of favorite channels un YT. Greetings from Ecuador 🇪🇨

[@BIuffwatcher]

Your channel is amazing. Love it when you upload something. Thanks.

[@jimtoomey9522]

Brilliant ! Thank you, extremely well done and understandable.

[@bobgreene2892]

Until your video, the VLT was obscured by a flurry of media attention to a few other, familiar telescopes. Previously, I knew little about the VLT's power and flexibility, but now, find strong interest in further VLT videos. Compliments to you for this excellent introduction to theVLT.

[@phelliprd6659]

👍.Great work in the making.Greetings to you and your team and God bless.

[@WWeronko]

As the 200 inch Hale Telescope had its 48-inch Samuel Oschin survey Telescope, the ESO's Very Large Telescope has the VLT 2.65 meter Survey Telescope (VST) and the VISTA (Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy) 4.1 meter survey scope to give it a wide view to offer targets to look at. Survey scopes are often under appreciated and worthy of discussion.

[@davidpeters3857]

Excellent, informative content as always

[@KaosRunes]

I've never heard of the VLT until this video. I know the BLT quite well though LOL I am quite interested in seeing more of what it has discovered.

[@EJD339]

It’s so cool they can upgrade this telescope. I don’t know if that was intentional but it’s cool to see this.

[@glennllewellyn7369]

Great presentation mate!

[@riogrande5761]

The graphic demonstrations were really fascinating to watch and very accessible to the average person!

[@nameatrandom9234]

Beautiful and Quality Video . Keep up the good work. Respect 👍✌️

[@cykkm]

Given how creative the astronomers are at naming their instruments, the next telescope after the Very Large Telescope and the Extremely Large Telescope is going to be called Mindbogglingly Humongous Telescope.

[@6yjjk]

Followed by YMT, the Yo Mama Telescope.

[@cykkm]

@@6yjjk 👍

[@FleshWizard69420]

​@@6yjjk nah the universe isn't big enough for that😂

[@erickyle5496]

The science, tech, and engineering that goes into building those the telescopes blows my mind.

[@scottweidt9144]

Yes, always enjoy learning more about LT

[@angelalewis3645]

Alex, please do a “Part 2,” a video of your top 10 discoveries the VLT has contributed to!

[@simo9445tsns]

Thanks again for this new video, a pleasure as always

[@HereticalKitsune]

I wondered what the lasers are for, thanks for clarifying it!

[@slartybartfast6868]

Yes, I would like to hear more. This is fascinating.

[@artisticevan2358]

Yay new astrum!

[@rowill2968]

LOL at the segue to shavers at the end. Well done.

[@jacobhenriques1541]

Yes. More fascinating VLT News on Astrum, please.

[@NutScrewGamer]

Thanks to this video, I dusted my old orion photos and realized I processed it wrong. If it wasn't for this video, this error probably would never get noticed by me. I accidentally mixed some bias frames with dark frames.

[@e.scottdaugherty8291]

Thanks for this, very informative.

[@Rocky1138]

Great video. Excellent work!

[@phillm156]

I would like to here more on the progress of the ELT and it’s construction.

[@FreshSav]

The naming scheme for these telescopes sounds like something straight out of Kerbal Space Program

[@jmanj3917]

Hellz yeah;Keep the pics coming!

[@EXQCmoi]

4:33 He, Dutch Space. Now I'm proud.

[@ltgrt7606]

Schwarzschild never deducted the existence of blackholes even mathematically from the field equations. Never-ending misunderstanding. But your presentation of the VLT is very interesting. Thank you

[@paavobergmann4920]

I am looking forward to the "Ridiculously Large Telescope"!

[@Earthneedsado-over177]

The ludicrously large telescope after that.

[@paavobergmann4920]

@@Earthneedsado-over177 Going towards the pinnacle of technological advance: The Absolutely Bonkers Telescope! No really, it´s fascinating, I am very much into astronomy and better and better telescopes, and I hate Musk a little for messing up the sky....

[@bbbl67]

Thanks, I had heard of the VLT, but never knew about the interferometry.

[@Sebastianmaz615]

"At our galaxy's center." 10:29 Just amazing to me that it's even possible to ascertain where the "center" is in the first place. 🤯

[@ogpeekhal]

@3:50 If you scale them up to the size of earth, the imperfections will be size of a pebble.... Holy Smokes!!!

[@valmontina]

Yes we want more of this please!

[@klocugh12]

Yes to hearing more about VLT.

[@ADVBear]

In February 2023, I left Brazil on my bike to visit the VLT. I crossed Brazil, Argentina and Chile, through the Atacama desert to reach the observatory. Unfortunately, for reasons outside my control, I was not abble to visit. But I came realy close, only 200 km out. But I'll be returning, and I will chronicle the journey in detail. I even had a patch made to commemorate the expedition, and it is stitched to the chest of my riding gear. I urge anybody that is interested in taking the journey, to camp on the desert, even if just for one night. To see the Milk Way above, outside my tent, was life changing to say the least.

[@carlesmiquel]

All big telescopes are awesome, but the VLT is one of a kind. All the efforts put into place in the Atacama Desert are beyond anything. Next stop will be the craziest, largest telescope ever made. This way, we can create telescopes like JWST and add data from our super-powerful earth-based ones. I feel JWST wouldn't even be a project if we didn't have our beautiful, yet expensive and complex earth-based ones. BTW.... less expensive. I wish you could go to Atacama and make a full report on the largest observatory. The human imagination behind it and the technology (both, the building, the site, the earth-moving strategies and the instrument itself) is mind blowing and worth an Alex's documentary. You rock, mate!

[@avejst]

Impressive project Great video as always 👍😀

[@colinormsby6972]

Wow.. remarkable science, remarkable space can we please get out there soon.

[@jimzielinski946]

Hopefully, someday, all the technology used in these advanced telescopes will find it's way into advanced amateur telescopes.

[@t.j.payeur5331]

Backyard astronomers with optical scopes still make huge contributions. The Hubble isn't obselete..this amazing piece of machinery in the Atacama will contribute for God knows how long...

[@Earthneedsado-over177]

I am always in awe of these machines and the Geniuses that design them.

[@NeilGastonguay]

Incredible images; show us more.

[@jam6636]

Yes I want more from the VLT ;)

[@jansenart0]

I love that sodium adaptive laser

[@mattweleber9845]

I totally want to know more about the VLT and it's discoveries!

[@Simple_But_Expensive]

As a science enthusiast, I was aware of the VLT since its proposal. What I wasn’t aware of until the movie “Quantum of Solace” was the hotel. This hotel is where the final battle of the movie was filmed. It is a not for profit non public hotel for the astronomers, and the joke is you need a Phd to register. The discoveries made by the telescope are every bit as jaw dropping as the Hubble’s, but the Hubble got all the press. That must have been frustrating to the scientists and engineers who designed and built it. I would love to see a more in depth look at the design and construction phase.

[@TedToal_TedToal]

Great video!

[@CybershamanX]

This made my eyes water a bit thinking about how our ancestors watched the skies with their naked eyes and tracked the movement of objects through many many generations. Today we can see even further and discern the most minute movements, but I still feel the emotional connection to not only the humans of the past, but also those of the future. Time is so relative, isn't it? 😉

[@MichaelWinter-ss6lx]

Have you seen pictures of ELT only half errected? Looks so much like stonehenge.

[@janakasanjaya6926]

Thank you

[@deltavee2]

I'd love to see a VLT-style cooperative arrangement among several James Webb telescopes out where it is now. A half-dozen JWs out in space would provide information we cannot even begin to contemplate understanding at present. One of these days....

[@rngalston]

great content! more, more!