  Multicore fibers are gaining growing attention in astronomy. The two main
attributes which make them attractive for astronomy are that they reduce the
distance between cores and hence have a superior fill factor to other
approaches and they offer the possibility to transport light in many channels
with the overhead of only having to handle a single fiber. These properties are
being exploited to realize miniature integral field units that can transport
light from different regions in a focal plane to a spectrograph for example.
Here we offer an overview of several applications where multicore fibers are
now being considered and applied to astronomical observations to enhance
scientific yield.
