The images from ground-based telescopes are degraded by Earth's turbulent atmosphere. Let's see why and how to fix this for the #TechWritersChallenge.

Imagine light travelling as sheets, like a sheet of paper. You probably learnt about rays of light at school. They don't really exist. But if they did, they'd pierce this sheet at right angles.

A perfect lens takes a flat sheet of light and bends it so its shape is spherical. This sheet then shrinks to a perfect point. This gives a perfect image. Perfect lenses don't exist either, but we hope to get as close as possible.

Now, light coming from a galaxy far, far away travels in a perfect flat sheet until it enters our annoying atmosphere, full of air pockets. The sheet is slightly crumpled. That's not good. It won't form a perfect image.

What if we have a special mirror with a flexible shiny surface (a mirror sheet!) If we can prod the back to this shiny mirror by the right amounts in the right places, we can change its shape. If the shape is right, we can uncrumple (is that even a word?) the sheet of light before it goes to the telescope.

[Word Count: 200]