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More than 1,400: the number of people that work for INAF, made-up of researchers (including research students and post-docs), technicians and administrative staff, that make everything possible. 19: the number of national research institutes, and one in the Canaries which operates the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo. 91 million euro: the basic operational fund assigned to INAF. Divided by the number of employees (or researchers) this corresponds to a pro capite basic operating grant which is amongst the lowest of the research organisations overseen by the MIUR (ministry of research). 200: the number of international research institutes that collaborate with INAF. Between 3,000 and 4,000 (8-11 a day): the scientific publications (articles, posters, popular articles) written by INAF researchers each year. 13: the number of INAF or INAF-associated researchers who appear in the list of "Highly Cited" Italian scientists in all disciplines (including the president and three members of the "Consiglio Scientifico" - the scientific advisory panel). 10 terabytes, equivalent to 2,000 DVDs: INAF's digital astronomical data archive. The archive grows by 55 gigabytes (12 DVDs) per day. 13 billion light years: the distance to the most distant object observed by an INAF researcher; a world record. It's a gamma ray burst produced by the explosion of a star when the Universe was only 5% of its current age. 1.3 billion kilometres: the distance to the farthest INAF instrument. This is VIMS, the spectrometer on-board the Cassini probe in orbit around Saturn. 34,000 square metres: the combined surface area of INAF's radio telescopes; the same as Piazza San Giovanni in Laterano in Rome, able to host a million people. Each parabola is able to detect the radio signal from a mobile phone on the Moon, 400,000 kilometres away. 2,000: the number of gamma ray bursts discovered by space missions in which Italy participates, 1,300 of which by the "made in Italy" satellites Beppo Sax and AGILE. 125,000: the number of ancient volumes of physics and astronomy in INAF's historic libraries, including twenty or so incunabula, books from the end of the 15th century, amongst the first printed using the movable type invented by Gutenberg.

FIRST IMAGE OF A REGION OF THE MILKY WAY FROM THE PEGASUS SURVEY

Jan 16, 2023

FIRST IMAGE OF A REGION OF THE MILKY WAY FROM THE PEGASUS SURVEY Led by INAF and Macquarie University, a portion of our Galaxy has been imaged in great detail as part of the PEGASUS survey - a radio astronomy project designed to discover more about the Milky Way

Studying the birth of exoplanets with chemistry

Sep 23, 2022

Studying the birth of exoplanets with chemistry A new study led by Elenia Pacetti, PhD student at La Sapienza University and INAF, jointly uses ultra-volatile, volatile, and refractory elements in the atmospheres of giant planets to develop a unified method to shed light on how and where giant planets form. The new work, published in The Astrophysical Journal, paves the road to the exoplanetary studies of the ESA mission Ariel