Quartz (New York, May 11) -- A new approach to large telescopes comes from a team of researchers from Northwestern University and Illinois. Usually, once large telescopes are built, the mirrors are pretty much fixed. However, a new telescope will use mirrors coated with magnetic material, along with a moving magnetic head (like the head of a magnetic computer hard drive) that can coax the mirrors into new positions, correcting for distortions (project is #13 on the list).