Carina Nebula is undoubtedly one of the most renowned space structures, having been made popular by the fact that it houses Eta Carinae, one of the most massive and wildest stars ever noticed inside the Milky Way. But the nebula also houses numerous other formations of interest, including a fairly large number of stellar clusters. One such formation is Trumpler 14, which astronomers estimate is only one million years old. As far as the Universe is concerned, the cluster appeared just a moment ago.

But this was the target of a new set of scientific observations, carried out by the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT). In order to get the amazingly clear photo of the cluster, which is located some 8,000 light-years away, the science team used the Multi-conjugate Adaptive optics Demonstrator (MAD) instrument, which relied on adaptive optics to make its observations. This means that it is able to correct the diffractions, reflections and other interferences that the Earth-based telescopes detect on account of the fact that they have to peer through the atmosphere. With MAD, it's as if the layer of gas around the planet doesn't even exist.

MAD is also able to perform these amazing corrections over impressively large patches of skies, better than any other i... (read more)