eye

It's not that often that I put up two blog posts in the same day, but I couldn't wait for this one.  In the past I've had trouble answering the question of "what has astronomy done for me" or "how can pure research benefit the economy."  

Well, today I have a clear example of how something from astronomy is helping a different field which, in turn, helps people:

Adaptive optics technology reveals eye's cellular structure with unprecedented detail

In the article they describe how AO, used to stabilize astronomical images from being blurred by Earth's atmosphere, has now been used to image a living retina.  This could, in turn, lead to earlier diagnosis of eye diseases earlier and save people's eyesight!Read more