In an attempt to destroy the black hole at the center of the Milky Way, scientists at The Very Large Telescope in Chile fire a laser at the monster eating the galaxy!  Ok, not really.  The laser is actually used to compensate for atmospheric instability, allowing the telescope to adjust for the clearest image possible.

Some geek about the joke…  even if they were firing at the black hole, the laser light would just get sucked in like everything else.  Plus, it would take about 35,000 years for the beam to get there, assuming it didn’t spread out to nothingness well before it got anywhere near the targeted singularity.

Black holes are weird, and science is cool!

Read the Bad Astronomy blog about it all here.