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• n  any measuring instrument that uses interference patterns to make accurate measurements of waves

• The only direct means of measuring them is with an interferometer: an instrument that collects the light from a star in two different mirrors a short distance apart, then feeds the .
• But in no experiment so far had the beams going in opposite directions returned to the interferometer simultaneously.
• Even at that size, the interim interferometer should be able to spot objects the size of Neptune around nearby stars.

News & Articles

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• Dusty surprise around giant black hole
  ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer has gathered the most detailed observations ever of the dust around the huge black hole at the centre of an active galaxy. Rather than finding all of the glowing dust in a doughnut-shaped torus around the black hole, as expected, the astronomers find that much of it is located above and below the torus. These observations show that dust is being pushed ...
  June 20, 2013 - Science Daily
• Black Hole Observed Pushing Matter Away, Rather Than Consuming It
  Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Observations of a nearby active galaxy using the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile have shown astronomers something they hadn’t expected to see. Astronomers have found over the past twenty years that nearly all galaxies have a black hole at their center, some of which grow by drawing in matter ...
  June 20, 2013 - redOrbit
• Dust In The Wind… Black Hole Style
  Over the years, researchers have taken myriad observations of black holes and their environs, but now ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer is giving us the most detailed look of the dust around a black hole at the center of an active galaxy ever obtained. Originally expected to be contained within the ring-shaped torus around the [...]
  June 20, 2013 - Universe Today