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Istituto italiano di astrofisica - national institute for astrophisics

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Carina Nebula, INAF identifies new star formations
The Gaia-ESO Survey: Global properties of clusters Trumpler 14 and 16 in the Carina nebula study conducted by Francesco Damiani from INAF of Palermo, involving a number of researchers from the INAF observatories of Arcetri, Bologna, Catania, Padua and Palermo, has been recently published in Astronomy & Astrophysics.
Space, Let’s go to Mars
An educational video game to explore the Red Planet
Space, ASI’s Sardinia Deep Space Antenna inaugurated
The SDSA is located at the Sardinia Radio Telescope-SRT: the large radio telescope for the study of the Universe, situated near Cagliari and developed by the National Institute for Astrophysics-INAF in collaboration with ASI, Regione Sardegna and the Ministry of Education, University and Research-MIUR.
Science with the Cherenkov Telescope Array
The updated science case for the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory, Science with the Cherenkov Telescope Array, became available for download in English or Spanish on the CTA website library and arXiv
Theseus Workshop, Napoli, 5-6 Oct 2017
The aim of this Workshop is to collect the several astrophysical communities involved and interested in the scientific goals, and related technology, of Theseus, in order to review the status of the project and further discuss and refine the expected scientific return for the several fields of cosmology and astrophysics on which this mission would have an important impact.
Astronomy: here is astroEDU Italia
An educational platform for students and teachers
A 3D step towards sorting out the Gamma-Ray Bursts zoo
A powerful tool for characterizing and classifying gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) to allow their use as tracers of the expansion history of the universe has recently been presented by an international team of researchers led by Dr. Maria Dainotti
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Marsis radar reveals that on Mars all that echoes is not ice
The low dielectric constant of the Meridiani Planum deposits is consistent with a thick layer of ice-free, porous, basaltic sand. This study is fundamental to identify techniques that may help find the planet’s areas with accessible water ice.
Light in Astronomy 2017
Light in Astronomy, organized by INAF in collaboration with the Italian Astronomical Society-SAIt, will be a week (13-19 November) dedicated to satisfying curiosity about the Universe thanks to the opening in Italy of INAF premises, including the astronomical observatories.
INAF researcher wins a Consolidator Grant 2017
Two black hole systems are the investigational topic of DEMOBLACK: one of the projects that have been granted the European Consolidator Grant, which was submitted by Michela Mapelli, a researcher of the National Institute for Astrophysics-INAF and Professor at the University of Innsbruck in Austria
Extrasolar planets: Italy to lead the construction of the SHARK instruments on the LBT
The Italian institutes involved in the construction of SHARK are the INAF Observatories of Padua and Rome, responsible for the two channels, together with the Observatories of Arcetri, Milan and Trieste and the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Padua
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INAF hosts the preliminary round to set up the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory-ERIC
At Headquarters of the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics INAF, the kick-off round of the multilateral negotiations to establish an ERIC organization to the manage the Cherenkov Telescope Array project as part of the EU’s ESFRI infrastructure roadmap had take place
K2-3: A system of three likely sub-Neptunes
A team led by astronomers from INAF presented a new study aimed at determining accurate masses for the three planets in orbit aroud the M-dwarf star K2-3
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The remote galaxy that is “dying out”
An impetuous outflow of ionized gas and carbon monoxide leaks from galaxy Xid2028, located at 9.6 billion light years from us, having a supermassive black hole in the centre. The discovery by INAF researchers.
THESEUS: a new window on the early Universe and the multi-messenger transient sky
The European Space Agency announced the three space missions selected for ESA’s fifth medium class mission in its Cosmic Vision science programme. One of them is THESEUS, in which the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics plays a major role
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The Governor-General of Australia visits INAF in Rome
His Excellency the Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia, Sir Peter Cosgrove, and his wife, Lady Cosgrove, today visited the Headquarters of INAF, the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics
First detection of the simplest organic acid in the protoplanetary disk surrounding a Sun-like young star
Using ALMA, an international group of astronomers have reported the first detection of formic acid towards the TW Hydrae protoplanetary disk, located at only 190 light years from our Sun
What is the shape of galaxy clusters?
The 3D shape of galaxy clusters is ellipsoidal, according to a study conducted by an international team of astronomers, recently published in the journal The Astrophysical Journal Letters
INAF reveals details about an elliptical galaxy
New clues about galaxy formation process come from the very detailed images of a group of elliptical galaxies studied by an international team of astronomers led by the National Institute of Astrophysics-INAF.
Gruber 2018 prize awarded to Nazzareno Mandolesi and Planck telescope team
The general assembly of the International Astronomical Union in Vienna has recently awarded the Gruber Prize 2018 for Cosmology.
The Third WEAVE All-Hands Meeting
17-20 September 2018, Naples, Italy
Vesta, tell us about the childhood of the Solar System
Particle Acceleration and Transport: from the Sun to Extragalactic Sources
12-16 November 2018, Università della Calabria, Rende, Italy
Call for 9th Paolo Farinella Prize launched
The ninth Paolo Farinella Prize will be awarded to a young scientist with outstanding contributions in the field of planetary science concerning “The Trans-Neptunian Population”. The prize consists of a plate, a certificate and the amount of 1500 euro. Nominations must be sent by email not later than April 15
Giant planets and comets battling in the circumstellar disk around HD 163296
In a study appearing today on The Astrophysical Journal, an INAF-lead team of researchers explored whether the anomalous features in the dust and gas distributions of HD 163296's disk revealed by ALMA's observations could arise from the interaction of the giant planets with a component of the disk previously unaccounted for: the planetesimals
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The disk of icy planetesimals hidden in HD 163296's circumstellar disk seen from above and the side. The young giant planets rapidly create a large population of exocomets acting as high-speed projectiles for the other bodies. Credits: D. Turrini (INAF-IAPS).
Important industrial contract assigned in the context of the ASTRI gamma-ray astronomy project
The National Institute for Astrophysics takes another important step towards the creation of the ASTRI range mini-array of telescopes, assigning to Hamamatsu Photonics Italia the tender for the realization of silicon sensors that will equip the cameras with images of the innovative double-mirror telescopes "Made in INAF", for an amount exceeding one million euros
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ASTRI: a new pathfinder of the arrays of Cherenkov telescopes
On June 12nd 2019, in La Laguna (Tenerife, Spain) Prof. Nichi D’Amico, President of the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF), and Prof. Rafael Rebolo Lopez, Director of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canaries, signed a Record of Understanding to enter a detailed negotiation on a technical and programmatic basis aimed to install and operate the ASTRI Mini-Array at the Observatorio del Teide
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The New Year’s Day meteorite has been found
For the first time in Italy a meteorite is recovered through systematic monitoring, thanks to the PRISMA network, promoted and coordinated by INAF
Where's there's one, there's one hundred more
PSO J030947.49+271757.31 is the most distant Blazar observed to date. The light we see from it began its journey when the Universe was less than 1 billion years old, almost 13 billion years ago. The blazar was discovered by a team of researchers led by Silvia Belladitta, a PhD student at the University of Insubria, working for the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) in Milan
We’re all astronauts on a public health mission: Ten tips for completing the quarantine successfully
Debora Penco, Occupational psychologist, workplace health and safety expert, deals with the theme of our life in the times of quarantine and others ideas and suggestions to manage problems and tensions connected to it.
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Unexpected magnetic channels in a distant galaxy
An international team of astronomers has uncovered unusual structures and a probable magnetic connection between the two lobes of the radio galaxy ESO 137-006 using the MeerKAT telescope, a precursor to the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). The study, led by Mpati Ramatsoku, was published in the Astronomy and Astrophysics journal
A farewell to BepiColombo after the flyby with the Earth
The picture was taken by Liverpool Telescope on the Canary Island of La Palma when the spacecraft was more than 2 million kilometres far from our planet
Roberto Peccei, 1942-2020
On June, the first, professor Roberto Peccei passed away
III Italy-Ukraine Scientific Meeting “Are We Alone in the Universe?”
A Virtual Conference on the Occasion of the Italian Research Day in the World
Ultraviolet light vs. COVID19: from the Sun to artificial lamps the germicidal power of ultraviolet rays against the pandemic
Results of a study carried out by the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) and the University of Milan, in collaboration with Istituto Nazionale Tumori and the Don Gnocchi Foundation of Milan, demonstrate the high germicidal power of short ultraviolet radiation (UV-C) on SARS-COV-2 coronavirus. This result has important public health implications on the strategies to be adopted to manage the pandemic and clearly explain how decontamination and sterilization protocols to prevent SARS-Cov-2 infection must be designed. Notably, taking off from these results a second study explains the role of Sun-derived UV-B/A in conditioning the epidemiology and the worldwide evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic
Magnetic tornadoes in the Sun’s atmosphere
A team of researchers led by Mariarita Murabito (INAF) that includes scientists of the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and the Warwick University has provided the first observational proof that solar tornadoes are produced by swirling magnetic fields
Olivier Le Fevre - in memoriam
On June 25, the astronomer Olivier Le Fevre passed away
Fermionic dark matter in our Galactic core?
From Raphael’s skies to the skies of the Third Millennium
When History of Art meets Astrophysics. Tuesday, September 1st 2020 at 7pm. Palazzo Ducale, Sala del Consiglio Maggiore. With Francesca Matteucci and Elizabeth Vermeer
Prof. Nichi D'Amico, President of the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics passed away at 67
ALMA shed light on the chemical composition of a protoplanetary disk
The team led by Linda Podio, a researcher at INAF, observed a protoplanetary disk of less than 1 million years, which is almost edge-on. The edge-on geometry allowed observing the vertical structure of the disk and to resolve distinct chemical layers. The images obtained thanks to ALMA revealed emission from several molecules. One of these is methanol, a key molecule for the formation of the so-called “complex organic molecules”
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The role of the Sun in the spread of viral respiratory diseases
VST beyond 2021
From Apr 2022 the INAF-ESO agreement for the VST operations in Paranal will expire, and INAF will gain full ownership of the telescope. To explore the various options, INAF has appointed a working group to review the scientific potential of the VST telescope and to present to the INAF management the potential options on the future of telecope operations
A new class of Einstein crosses unveiled
An international team of astronomers has found a new class of Einstein crosses, where massive elliptical galaxies produces multiple, cross-shaped images of far away galaxies called “blue nuggets”
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A “cosmic microscope” reveals the origin of galactic winds produced by supermassive black holes
By studying a sample of distant galaxies, whose light reaches us from a cosmic epoch when the Universe was just three billion years old, a team of researchers led by Giustina Vietri (INAF) has followed the winds blowing in “active” galaxies down to only a few light-years from the supermassive black holes that sit in the galactic cores
INAF joins the MeerKAT+ Project
The South African Radio Astronomy Observatory and the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft welcome the Italian Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica as partner on the MeerKAT extension project
Magnetic anomalies on the young craters of Mercury
It is possible to find a point of convergence between geophysics and planetary geology, and a group of researchers led by Valentina Galluzzi from INAF did so by analyzing the crustal magnetic field of the planet Mercury, focusing on some anomalies identified nearby two recently formed craters
The best place and time to live in the Milky Way
More than 6 billion years ago, the outskirts of the Milky Way were the safest places for the development of possible life forms, sheltered from the most violent explosions in the universe: gamma-ray bursts and supernovae. This is demonstrated by a new study, led by researchers from INAF and the University of Insubria in Italy, which investigates the incidence of these events throughout the evolution of our galaxy
Gaia draws a new map of the galactic spirals
An international team led by researchers of the the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) has compiled the most detailed map yet of the Milky Way’s spiral structure within about 16,000 light years from the Sun, by making use of the position and brightness of around 600,000 young stars measured by Gaia, the European Space Agency’s star surveyor
The long journey of human missions to Mars and back to Earth
The Embassy of Italy, in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute in Sydney and the Australian Academy of Science, invites you to an Italian Night with Five Southern Stars!
Classifying Seyfert Galaxies with Deep Learning
Scientist uses deep learning to identify low luminous Seyfert 1.9 galaxies that are usually missed by human inspection among ten thousands of spectra. These results are published in the Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series by Yen Chen Chen, in the department of physics at Sapienza University of Rome and ICRANet
Multiwavelength snapshot of a repeating fast radio burst
With a multiwavelength campaign, a group of astronomers led by the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) studied a repeating fast radio burst (FRB). The object FRB20201124A, discovered in November 2020, reactivated in March 2021, emitting a series of radio bursts
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Radio evidence of a minor merger in the Shapley supercluster
A group of radio astronomers led by INAF has conducted a multi-frequency and multi-band study of the Shapley Supercluster, where the formation of large structures is ongoing at the present cosmological age. Radio astronomers have discovered a radio emission that acts as a "bridge" between a cluster of galaxies and a group of galaxies
The operational phase begins for the CUBES spectrograph
The operational phase begins for the CUBES (Cassegrain U-Band Efficient Spectrograph) project, an innovative ultraviolet spectrograph to be installed on the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (ESO's VLT) at the Paranal Observatory in Chile
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First light for SiFAP4XP
SiFAP4XP is a new fast photometer with polarimetric capabilities at the TNG Telescope. The project was triggered by the challenging goal to observe in the optical domain the same targets of the IXPE satellite, the first to be specifically dedicated to X-ray polarimetric observations
The NEOROCKS project: online the newsletter first issue
NEOROCKS (Near-Earth Object Rapid Observation, Characterization and Key Simulations) is an European project financed by the Horizon 2020 UE program. The first issue of the project newsletter is an online magazine to report about news in the NEO field
AN ARTIFICIAL EYE FOR BILLIONS OF GALAXIES SAMPLES
An international group of scientists, including researchers from the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics, has used artificial intelligence (AI) to measure the size of galaxies as far away as about seven billion light-years from Earth
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The final catalogue of the Gaia-ESO Survey is public
ESO has just released the final catalogue of the Gaia-ESO Survey (GES), a large public spectroscopic survey carried out with the Very Large Telescope (VLT) of the European Southern Observatory in Chile. INAF has played a key role in all the aspects of the survey.
Announcing the new Director of the Large Binocular Telescope
The Large Binocular Telescope Observatory, one of the largest and most advanced optical telescopes in the world, is proud to announce the appointment of its new Director, Prof. Joseph Shields, who will assume the position effective June 06, 2022
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AN UNEXPECTED GAMMA-RAY BURST
An international group led by INAF researchers have confirmed that the gamma-ray burst GRB 200826A, which lasted less than two seconds – typical of short bursts – is associated with the explosion of a massive star, which is typical of long gamma-ray bursts
GRB 190829A - A Showcase of Binary Late Evolution
The discovery of an extremely energetic gamma-ray burst from the infant Universe
An international effort led by INAF researcher Andrea Rossi discovered and followed up the gamma-ray burst GRB 210905A, one of the most luminous events ever recorded that exploded when our Universe was just less than 900 million years old
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A new milestone for the HEMERA Program
During August in Timmins, Canada, the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and the Centre national d'études spatiales (CNES) have managed to launch in rapid sequence 4 balloons in the stratosphere, up to ceiling altitudes greater than 30km
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Stellar evolution along the HR diagram with Gaia
The hybrid workshop started its activities in the INAF National Auditorium “Ernesto Capocci” of the Capodimonte Astronomical Observatory in Naples
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
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
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Professor Leonid Lytvynenko passed away
JUICE: JANUS SENT ITS FIRST IMAGES ACQUIRED IN SPACE
The instrument Jovis, Amorum ac Natorum Undique Scrutator (JANUS) passed the commissioning phase with full marks. It is a real test during which - 8 million km from the Earth - it opened its electronic "eyes", sending the so-called "first light", i.e. his first series of images, to the technicians and researchers
JUICE: MAJIS COMPLETED COMMISSIONING IN FLIGHT
Among the remote sensing instruments on board the ESA JUICE spacecraft, as for JANUS, RIME and 3GM - all built with funding from the Italian Space Agency (ASI) - MAJIS was also successfully turned on and tested in orbit (commissioning phase): both channels proved to work very well
SWIFT: THE MOST BRILLIANT GRB DETECTED IN OPTICAL
A team of researchers has observed the very first stages of a gamma-ray burst (GRB), which turned out to be the brightest in the optical bands detected until now
Farewell Krakow, see you in Padua for EAS 2024
The annual meeting of the European Astronomical Society (EAS) ended today in Krakow, Poland. Next year, Padua will host the annual EAS meeting from 1st to 5th July 2024
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MeerKAT+: the MeerKAT Extension

Feb 21, 2024

MeerKAT+: the MeerKAT Extension The handover of the first dish of the MeerKAT extension signals an important milestone for the SKA-MID construction

The first discoveries of the Webb space telescope in Rome: public lecture on 29 February

Feb 21, 2024

The first discoveries of the Webb space telescope in Rome: public lecture on 29 February On Thursday 29 February at 6 pm, Prof. Roberto Maiolino of the University of Cambridge (UK) will hold a public lecture on the theme "The invisible Universe revealed by the James Webb Space Telescope" at the Department of Physics of Sapienza University of Rome

The AGILE satellite re-entered the atmosphere

Feb 14, 2024

The AGILE satellite re-entered the atmosphere After 17 years of thriving operations, the AGILE Italian scientific satellite re-entered the atmosphere, thus ending its intense activity as a hunter of some of the most energetic cosmic sources in the Universe that emit gamma and X-rays