Reconstructed image of the rapidly rotating compact and asymmetric disk around Beta Canis Minoris, captured by the new photonic flashlight. The white scale bar in the lower right corner marks 1 milliarcsecond, the equivalent of a scale of 1.80 m at the distance of the Moon
With just one telescope, the new “photonic flashlight” gives interferometry “10 to zero”. The system achieved a fivefold improvement in measuring the tiny color variations caused by the Doppler effect.
A team led by the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) has just developed a revolutionary technology that allows images of unprecedented clarity to be obtained using just a telescope.
The secret lies in a device with a name that seems straight out of a science fiction movie: the “photonic flashlight”.
Traditionally, the resolution of astronomical images depends directly on the size of the telescope: the larger the mirror, the more light it captures and the more details it reveals. To overcome these physical limitations, scientists often turn to interferometry, which combines data from multiple telescopes spread over large distances. But this new approach is special: it achieves comparable (and in some cases superior) results using just a single installation, points out .
The photonic flashlight is an optical fiber specially designed to manipulate starlight in an unprecedented way. Instead of treating the light beam as a whole, the device separates it into different spatial patterns: Universe Today likens it to breaking down a musical chord into its individual notes.
These patterns carry precious information about the structure of observed objects, but are often lost in conventional methods. By preserving and analyzing them, the researchers were able to reconstruct images with a definition much higher than expected for the size of the telescope used.
The test was carried out in the Subaru Telescopelocated in Hawaii, and targeted the star Beta Canis Minoris, about 162 light-years away. The star is surrounded by a rotating disk of hydrogen gas, the structure of which scientists wanted to map in detail. The observations revealed something unexpected: the disc is not symmetrical, presenting an irregular shape that is impossible to detect with traditional techniques.
The team also had to face interference from the Earth’s atmosphere, which makes the stars “twinkle” and blurs the images. Even with adaptive optics systems, photon flashlight sensitivity required new data processing methods to eliminate noise.
The effort paid off. The system achieved a fivefold improvement in measuring the tiny color variations caused by the Doppler effect, allowing it to accurately map the rotation of the stellar disk.
