These Schools are directed to PhD students and young Post-Docs in Physics, Astronomy and Mathematics who are interested in widening their knowledge in the fields of Physical Cosmology, Relativistic Astrophysics, General Relativity, Experimental Gravity and the Modern Quantum Theories of Gravitation.

The theme selected for the School considers a dilemma that today cosmology and astrophysics are experiencing: on one side, we have a very successful model, the ΛCDM model, able to adjust to almost all observations. On the other hand, such a model requires 96% of stuff about whose nature we have yet no certain knowledge: 26% of dark matter and 70% of dark energy, with only 4% left for the known matter, mostly in the form of hydrogen and helium nuclei. While dark matter seems to be necessary to explain the formation and the dynamics of galaxies and of larger structures, such as galaxy clusters and super clusters, dark energy is required to explain why our universe is in a state of accelerated expansion. The school aims at providing master’s and doctoral students and young post doctoral researchers with a perspective on the most important proposals on the nature of the dark components of the universe, not only from the theoretical point of view, but also from the experimental and observational one.

A significant number of students, both from Italy and abroad, participated to the School (co-funded by INAF Scientific Direction together with other Research Institutions and Universities), with a rare opportunity: a truly ‘wide field’ perspective on this theme. It has been indeed a precise choice of the Scientific Committee to include as many points of view as possible, from the more canonical to the more contentious. The lectures have been estremely interesting, from the standard cosmological model and its possible extensions to theoretical hypotheses and experimental searches on the origin of dark matter and energy, observational constraints on Hubble Constant and other fundamental cosmological parameters, the phenomenology in support of general relativity, alternative theories of gravitation.

The lectures given at the School:

• Elena Aprile (Columbia University, USA) and Elisabetta Barberio (University of Melbourne, Australia) – The search for dark matter
• Indranil Banik (University of Portsmouth, UK) – The local supervoid solution to the Hubble tension
• Karl van Bibber (UC Berkeley, USA) – Axion and axion-like particle dark matter
• Filipe Costa (Minho University, Portugal) – Astronomical reference systems in the framework of General Relativity
• Mariateresa Crosta (INAF, Turin, Italy) – Dark Matter as a possible effect of General Relativity
• Joshua A. Frieman (University of Chicago, USA) – Dark Energy: Theory and Observations
• Brenda L. Frye (University of Arizona, USA) – Measuring the Hubble–Lemaître Constant by Time Delay Cosmography
• Asta Heinesen (Bohr Institute, Denmark) – Backreaction from inhomogeneities
• Ruth E. Kastner (University of Maryland, USA) – Transactional Entropic Gravity and MOND
• Pavel Kroupa (University of Bonn, Germany) – Cosmological models based on MOND
• Andrea Lapi (SISSA, Italy) – Stochastic approach to dark energy
• Roberto Peron (INAF, Rome, Italy) – Precision tests of GR in the Solar System
• Joseph Silk (University of Oxford, UK) – Gamma ray probes of dark matter in galaxies and primordial black holes as dark matter
• Constantinos Skordis (CEICO, Czech Republic) – Extensions of General Relativity and cosmological dark matter
• Sandro Tacchella (University of Cambridge, UK) – The newest from JWST: implications for cosmology and galaxy formation
• Tim Tait (UC Irvine, USA) – Building realistic models of dark matter
• Michael Turner (University of Chicago, USA) – The big cosmological picture and the big open questions

December 13, 2024 – In April 2019, the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration (EHT) scientists released the first image of a black hole in the galaxy Messier 87 (M87), and since then have been busy imaging several other black holes. The same EHT Collaboration has recently coordinated a second campaign on M87 and detected a spectacular flare from the powerful relativistic jet emanating from the very centre of the same galaxy at multiple wavelengths. Also known as Virgo A or NGC 4486, M87 is the brightest object in the Virgo cluster of galaxies, the largest gravitationally bound type of structure in the universe. Led by the EHT-MWL working group, the study presents the data from the second EHT observational campaign conducted in April 2018, involving over 25 ground-based and space-based telescopes. The authors report the first observation in over a decade of a high-energy gamma-ray flare (detecting photons up to thousands of billions of times the energy of visible light) from the supermassive black hole M87* after obtaining nearly simultaneous spectra of the galaxy with the broadest wavelength coverage ever collected.

"We were lucky to detect a gamma-ray flare from M87 during this Event Horizon Telescope's multi-wavelength campaign. This marks the first gamma-ray flaring event observed in this source in over a decade, allowing us to precisely constrain the size of the region responsible for the observed gamma-ray emission. Observations—both recent ones with a more sensitive EHT array and those planned for the coming years—will provide invaluable insights and an extraordinary opportunity to study the physics surrounding M87’s supermassive black hole. These efforts promise to shed light on the disk-jet connection and uncover the origins and mechanisms behind the gamma-ray photon emission." says Giacomo Principe, the project coordinator, a researcher at the University of Trieste associated with INAF and INFN. The article has been published in Astronomy & Astrophysics.

The relativistic jet examined by the researchers is surprising in its extent, reaching sizes that exceed the black hole’s event horizon by tens of millions of times - akin to the difference between the size of a bacterium and the largest known blue whale.

The energetic flare, which lasted approximately three days and suggests an emission region of less than three light-days in size (~170 AU, where 1 Astronomical Unit is the distance from the Sun to Earth), revealed a bright burst of high-energy emission—well above the energies typically detected by radio telescopes from the black hole region.

"Together with the sub-millimetre observations from EHT, the new multi-wavelength data offer a unique and unprecedented opportunity to understand the properties of the gamma-ray emission, link it to potential changes in the M87 jet, and allow for more sensitive tests of general relativity," emphasises Principe, underlining the potential for ground-breaking discoveries.

The second EHT and multi-wavelength campaign in 2018 leveraged more than two dozen high-profile observational facilities, including NASA’s Fermi-LAT, HST, NuSTAR, Chandra, and Swift telescopes, together with the world’s three largest Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescope arrays (H.E.S.S., MAGIC and VERITAS). These observatories are sensitive to X-ray photons and high-energy, very-high-energy (VHE) gamma-rays, respectively. During the campaign, the LAT instrument aboard the Fermi space observatory detected an increase in high-energy gamma-ray flux with energies up to billions of times greater than visible light.

Elisabetta Cavazzuti, head of the Fermi program for ASI, underscores the critical importance of coordinated multi-wavelength observations: "Fermi-LAT detected a significant increase in flux during the same period as other observatories, aiding in the identification of the gamma-ray emission region during these brightness surges. M87 serves as a laboratory, underscoring the critical importance of coordinated multi-wavelength observations and thorough sampling to fully characterise the source's spectral variability. This variability likely spans different time scales, providing a comprehensive view across the entire electromagnetic spectrum."

Chandra and NuSTAR then collected high-quality data in the X-ray band. The VLBA (Very Long Baseline Array) radio observations - for which the INAF radio astronomy stations were also involved - show an apparent annual change in the jet's position angle within a few milliarcsec from the galaxy's core.

Principe continues: "These results offer the first-ever possibility to identify the point from where the particles causing the flare are being accelerated. This could potentially resolve a long-standing debate about the origin of cosmic rays (very high-energy particles from space) detected on Earth."

Data also show a significant variation in the position angle of the asymmetry of the ring (the so-called 'event horizon' of the black hole) and the jet’s position, suggesting a physical relation between these structures on very different scales. The researcher explains: “In the first image obtained during the 2018 observational campaign, the emission along the ring was not homogeneous, thus presenting asymmetries (i.e., brighter areas). Subsequent observations conducted in 2018 and related to this paper confirmed the data, highlighting that the asymmetry's position angle had changed.”

“How and where particles are accelerated in supermassive black hole jets is a longstanding mystery.  For the first time, we can combine direct imaging of the near event horizon regions during gamma-ray flares from particle acceleration events and test theories about the flare origins,” says Sera Markoff, a professor at the University of Amsterdam and co-author of the study.

This discovery paves the way for stimulating future research and potential breakthroughs in understanding the universe.

Related journal article: "Broadband Multi-wavelength Properties of M87 during the 2018 EHT Campaign including a Very High Energy Flaring Episode", by The Event Horizon Telescope- Multi-wavelength science working group, The Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration, The Fermi Large Area Telescope Collaboration, H.E.S.S. Collaboration, MAGIC Collaboration, VERITAS Collaboration, and EAVN Collaboration. In: Astronomy & Astrophysics.

The images can be used to cover this topic. Please include credits as follows:

Figure 1:

Light curve of the gamma-ray flare (bottom) and collection of quasi-simulated images of the M87 jet (top) at various scales obtained in radio and X-ray during the 2018 campaign. The instrument, the wavelength observation range and scale are shown at the top left of each image. Credits: EHT Collaboration, Fermi-LAT Collaboration, H.E.S.S. Collaboration, MAGIC Collaboration, VERITAS Collaboration, EAVN Collaboration

Figure 2:

The observatories and telescopes that participated in the 2018 multiband campaign to detect the high-energy gamma-ray flare from the M87* black hole. Credits: EHT Collaboration, Fermi-LAT Collaboration, H.E.S.S. Collaboration, MAGIC Collaboration, VERITAS Collaboration, EAVN Collaboration

Animation: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/onwoa80ypymd6mm0exlr7/VHE_LC_skymap_animation.mp4?rlkey=vdnph7b5f5be10ae4aqeo2h52&dl=0

Very high energy gamma-ray flare observed by Cherenkov telescopes (H.E.S.S., MAGIC and VERITAS). Credits: EHT Collaboration, Fermi-LAT Collaboration, H.E.S.S. Collaboration, MAGIC Collaboration, VERITAS Collaboration, EAVN Collaboration

Contacts:

INAF Press Office - Marco Galliani, +39 335 1778428, ufficiostampa@inaf.it

Emanuele Dalessandro, researcher at INAF in Bologna, lead author of the article and coordinator of the working group, explains: "Understanding the physical processes behind the formation and early evolution of globular clusters is one of the most fascinating and debated astrophysical questions of the past 20–25 years. The results of our study provide the first solid evidence that globular clusters formed through multiple star formation events and place fundamental constraints on the dynamical path followed by the clusters throughout their evolution. These results were made possible by a multi-diagnostic approach and the combination of state-of-the-art observations and dynamic simulations."

The study highlights that the kinematic differences between multiple populations are key to understanding the formation and evolution mechanisms of these ancient structures.

With ages that can reach 12-13 billion years (thus dating back to the dawn of the cosmos), globular clusters are among the first systems to form in the Universe. They represent a typical population of all galaxies. They are compact systems (with masses of several hundred thousand solar masses and sizes of a few parsecs), and they can be observed even in distant galaxies.

"Their astrophysical significance is huge," says Dalessandro, "because they not only help us to test cosmological models of the formation of the Universe due to their age but also provide natural laboratories for studying the formation, evolution, and chemical enrichment of galaxies." Despite globular clusters have been studied for over a century, recent observational results show that our knowledge is still largely incomplete.

"Results obtained in the last two decades have unexpectedly shown that globular clusters consist of more than one stellar population: a primordial one, with chemical properties similar to other stars in the Galaxy, and another with anomalous chemical abundances of light elements such as helium, oxygen, sodium, and nitrogen," says Mario Cadelano, researcher at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Bologna and INAF associate, one of the authors of the study. "Despite the large number of observations and theoretical models aimed at characterising these populations, the mechanisms regulating their formation are still not understood."

The study is based on the measurement of 3D velocities, i.e., the combination of proper motions and radial velocities, obtained with the ESA Gaia telescope and with data from, among others, the ESO VLT telescope, primarily as part of the MIKiS survey (Multi Instrument Kinematic Survey), a spectroscopic survey specifically aimed at exploring the internal kinematics of globular clusters. The use of these telescopes, from space and the ground, has provided an unprecedented 3D view of the velocity distribution of stars in the selected globular clusters.

The analysis reveals that stars with different abundances of light elements are characterised by different kinematic properties, such as rotational velocities and orbital distributions.

"In this work, we analysed in detail the motion of thousands of stars within each cluster," adds Alessandro Della Croce, a PhD student at INAF in Bologna. "It quickly became clear that stars belonging to different populations have distinct kinematic properties: stars with anomalous chemical composition tend to rotate faster than the others within the cluster and progressively spread from the central regions to the outer ones."

The intensity of these kinematic differences depends on the dynamical age of globular clusters. "These results are consistent with the long-term dynamical evolution of stellar systems, in which stars with anomalous chemical abundances form more centrally concentrated and rotate more rapidly than the standard ones. This, in turn, suggests that globular clusters formed through multiple star formation episodes and provides an important piece of information in defining the physical processes and timescales underlying the formation and evolution of massive stellar clusters," Dalessandro emphasises.

This new 3D view of the motion of stars within globular clusters provides an unprecedented and fascinating framework for the formation and dynamical evolution of these intriguing systems. It also helps to clarify some of the most complex mysteries surrounding the origin of these ancient structures.

Related journal article: “A 3D view of multiple populations kinematics in Galactic globular clusters”, by  E. Dalessandro, M. Cadelano, A. Della Croce, F. I. Aros, E. B. White, E. Vesperini, C. Fanelli, F. R. Ferraro, B. Lanzoni, S. Leanza, L. Origlia. In: Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Contacts:

INAF Press Office - Marco Galliani, +39 335 1778428, ufficiostampa@inaf.it

With these objectives in mind, the National Institute for Astrophysics has won an ESO international call for proposals aimed at producing forecasts of optical turbulence (OT) and the main atmospheric parameters to optimise astronomical observations of the VLT and all the instruments with which it is equipped. The selected project, called FATE (Forecasting Atmosphere and Turbulence for ESO sites) sees the collaboration of the CNR/Regione Toscana consortium LaMMA (Laboratorio di Monitoraggio e Modellistica Ambientale per lo sviluppo sostenibile), which also provides meteo services for the Italian Civil Protection.

The FATE project began in November 2022 and entered the commissioning phase in September - December 2023, with tests to verify the technical and operational specifications. Once completed, it will enter in the operational phase in which ESO will be able to optimise observing strategies for the VLT and start planning those for ELT, which is currently scheduled to come into operation in 2028.

"The commissioning lasted four months and was aimed at verifying the robustness of the prediction system and compliance with the technical specifications required by ESO, i.e. the accuracy of the predictions of the different parameters at different time scales," says Elena Masciadri, INAF researcher and principal investigator of the FATE project. "The spatio-temporal fluctuations of optical turbulence have much smaller typical scales than those of classical atmospheric parameters and therefore the prediction of optical turbulence is a much more difficult objective to achieve. ESO's technical specifications are also quite stringent, as one would naturally expect, considering that the VLT is undoubtedly one of the most prestigious telescopes in the world, but also one of the most complex, consisting of four 8.2-metre diameter telescopes plus four 1.8-metre auxiliary telescopes, with a great variety of instrumentation and therefore observing possibilities. We can say that we are satisfied with the commissioning,' continues Masciadri, 'as it has allowed us to demonstrate the robustness and reliability of the system, and at the same time to better define the margins for improving the accuracy of the predictions where we will concentrate in the second phase of the project.

The magnificent Milky Way stretching over the Very Large Telescope (VLT) at ESO’s Paranal Observatory, demonstrating the astounding level of detail visible in the night sky from this remote site in the Chilean Atacama Desert. Credit: P. Horálek/ESO

Modern telescopes are now equipped with interchangeable instruments that have specific conditions of use, which also depend on the atmospheric conditions prevailing during observations. Some of these instruments are not very sensitive to, for example, a high concentration of humidity in the air, while others are almost completely 'blinded' by it. For certain types of scientific programmes, it is very important to collect data in the presence of a weak optical turbulence, for example in all observations requiring a high level of detail in small portions of the sky that exploit the benefits of adaptive optics, such as in the search for exoplanets. In general, knowledge of optical turbulence is crucial in all observations supported by adaptive optics.  The ELT will be a facility supported 100 per cent by adaptive optics, so the prediction of optical turbulence is certainly crucial for next generation astronomy.

Beside to the prediction above the VLT of a number of atmospheric parameters such as temperature, wind strength and direction, relative humidity, water vapour and cloud cover, the FATE project will also be concerned with the prediction of so-called astroclimatic parameters at night, including the so-called seeing, a parameter indicating the level of the atmospheric perturbation in the quality of astronomical images. But what is the optical turbulence? Temperature fluctuations in the air generate fluctuations in the refractive index, which in turn perturbs the wavefront of light from the celestial objects observed. This wavefront is thus 'imperfect' and the image collected by the telescope looses details accuracy, thus limiting the potential of the instrumentation used. Adaptive optics techniques aim to correct for these perturbations, but their performance depends on the state of the turbulence, which is why an accurate prediction of the optical turbulence is essential.

A forecasting system such as the one envisaged in the FATE project is based on hydrodynamic models that are defined as 'mesoscale': the model is applied to a limited region of the Earth, achieving a higher resolution than a forecast on a global scale could provide. This forecast is made using, as initialisation data, those produced by general circulation models, i.e. applied to the entire globe by the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF), the centre acting on behalf of the entire European community.

INAF's experience in the field of optical turbulence forecasting for astronomy acquired over the years was fundamental in arriving at the FATE project: "We developed a model for forecasting optical turbulence, called Astro-Meso-NH in the 1990s, and since then the system has evolved, it has been applied to several among the best observatories in the world and more recently has been automated, making the model usable in operational mode and not just for research purposes", recalls Elena Masciadri "the development of modern 'assimilation data' techniques and more generally the statistical techniques of spatial filtering have guaranteed us levels of accuracy that were inconceivable only a decade ago. INAF,' concludes Masciadri, 'has the scientific responsibility for the FATE project, taking care of the development of the automatic operational forecasting system, the study and development of the algorithms required to obtain the technical specifications of the forecasting system, and all the activities necessary to improve performance that will be implemented during the first years of the operational phase. The LaMMA has the operational responsibility to manage and monitor the forecast system, both on a daily basis and over longer time intervals, and thus to ensure optimal coverage of the system”. “Software for the OT forecasts is operational in LaMMA and use High Performance Computing ressources (HPC) that are expressely dedicated to FATE and have been purchased thanks also to a contribution from the Tuscany Region. The role of LaMMA in the project is based mainly on trustworthiness of its data center that, since  more than 20 years has shown reliability in terms of strenghtness and resilience in the field of the meteo service done for the Tuscany Region – says Alberto Ortolani, LaMMA researcher and responsible of the LaMMA unit – the deep scientific comptences of INAF in the field of the OT forecast and the long-time experience del LaMMA in the management of operational meteo services lead to the win of the international call opened by ESO. The fact that a tuscany proposal won this international competition make us very proud”.

Wednesday, 21 February 2024: The first MeerKAT+ antenna was today handed over in a festive ceremony in the Karoo region in South Africa. This marks another important step towards the SKA Observatory’s (SKAO) mid-frequency telescope, into which the 14 antennas of the MeerKAT extension will be integrated in the next few years. In addition to representatives of the members Max Planck Society (MPG), the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) and the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF) which are jointly financing these 14 antennas, invited guests from the partner countries involved and the SKAO took part in the handover ceremony.

In their welcoming remarks, Angus Paterson, Deputy CEO of the National Research Foundation in South Africa, Takalani Nemaungani, Chief Director for the Astronomy portfolio of the Department of Science and Innovation, Enrico Brandt, Deputy Ambassador of the German Embassy in South Africa, and Michael Kramer, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany, highlighted the importance of the event for the future of radio astronomy.

Together with Pontsho Maruping, Managing Director of the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO), Michael Kramer addressed the development of the MeerKAT extension (MeerKAT+) antenna and the excellent collaboration throughout the entire process. “It is incredibly impressive to see what has already been achieved with the MeerKAT telescope, and even greater results could be expected with the expansion,” he said. The highlight of the ceremony was a trip to the antenna field, where the MeerKAT+ antenna was officially handed over by Fabrice Scheid, Managing Director of the Mainz location of OHB Digital Connect.

The expansion of the MeerKAT telescope will further deepen the scientific and technological cooperation that has already begun through the close collaboration between SARAO and the Max Planck Society (MPG) in Germany as part of MeerKAT. "The project has started only in 2019 and it is great to see that the first successes of this joint project are now visible," said Pontsho Maruping, adding that "The MeerKAT+ expansion project will significantly improve the sensitivity, angular resolution and image quality of the MeerKAT radio telescope.” The expansion of MeerKAT’s 64 parabolic antennas by at least another 14 dishes will result in a huge virtual telescope that can produce detailed radio images from the observation of weak radio sources.

These capabilities will grow even further when the MeerKAT antennas become part of the huge 197-dish SKA-MID telescope array, currently under construction at the same site.

The MeerKAT INAF team for band 5: Antonio Semola, Andrea Melis, Francesco Schillirò, Corrado Trigilo, Grazia Umana, Gianfranco Fallica, Alessandro Cabras

"The expansion of MeerKAT increases the sensitivity of the receiving systems by around 50%, enabling not only much faster mapping of the sky but also the detection of extremely weak astronomical sources," said Angus Paterson. Dennis Winkelmann, Managing Director of industry partner OHB Digital Connect, was satisfied with the result: "We have proven that the design is excellent, that it works for scientific use and that it is suitable for serial production on an industrial scale."

"This project is another example of the excellent and trusting cooperation between SARAO and MPIfR," said Michael Kramer. "It is fantastic to see this first MeerKAT+ antenna being completed. This is an achievement of partners from science and industry, nationally and internationally. And I can’t wait to see the first data from the antenna along with the rest of the array."

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Background Information

MeerKAT: Built and operated by the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO), the 64 dish MeerKAT is the largest radio telescope in the Southern hemisphere and one of two SKA precursor instruments based in South Africa. Located in the Karoo semi- desert, the radio telescope will soon be expanded with an additional number of dishes, in the context of the “MeerKAT+” project, jointly funded in 2019 by SARAO and the Max-Planck- Gesellschaft (MPG) in Germany and since 2020 with the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF). The telescope will later be gradually integrated into SKAO's Mid telescope in South Africa.

SARAO: The South African Radio Astronomy Observatory, a facility of the National Research Foundation, is responsible for managing all radio astronomy initiatives and facilities in South Africa, including the MeerKAT Radio Telescope in the Karoo, and the Geodesy and VLBI activities at the HartRAO facility. SARAO also coordinates the African Very Long Baseline Interferometry Network (AVN) for the eight SKA partner countries in Africa, as well as South Africa’s contribution to the infrastructure and engineering planning for the Square Kilometre Array Radio Telescope (SKA).

MPG: The Max Planck Gesellschaft is a non-profit organisation with 86 institutes and research facilities. Among the society’s institutes is the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR) as a key player in the SKA’s Dish engineering consortium. Together with German industry partners, such as the telescope antenna specialists MT Mechatronics (MTM), and international partners, the Dish consortium is responsible for designing the SKA’s mid-frequency array (SKA-Mid).

SKAO: The SKA Observatory (SKAO) is an intergovernmental organisation bringing together nations from around the world. Its mission is to build and operate cutting-edge radio telescopes to transform our understanding of the Universe, and deliver benefits to society through global collaboration and innovation. The Observatory has a global footprint and consists of the SKAO Global Headquarters in the UK, the SKAO’s two telescopes at radio- quiet sites in South Africa and Australia, and associated facilities to support the operations of the telescopes. Once in operation, the SKAO will be one global observatory operating two telescopes across three continents on behalf of its member states and partners.

INAF: The Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica is the main Italian research institute for the study of the Universe, founded in 1999. INAF funds and operates seventeen separate research facilities, which in turn employ scientists, engineers and technical staff. The research they perform covers most areas of astronomy, ranging from planetary science to cosmology.

The conference is open to the general public and will be in Italian. It will be moderated by Dr. Massimo Stiavelli, head of the JWST mission office at the Space Telescope Science Institute (Baltimore, United States) since 2012.

This event is organized in collaboration between the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and Sapienza University of Rome, with patronage from the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF), as part of the workshop “Astrophysics: The James Webb Space Telescope. From first light to new visions of the world", which brings together researchers from all over the world at the Casina Pio IV, Vatican City, between 27 and 29 February, to discuss the first, exciting results of the James Webb space telescope (JWST). In addition to scientific results, the workshop aims to reflect also on what this new knowledge means for science and society.

Launched in 2021, JWST is a phenomenal time machine, capable of photographing the first stars and galaxies that formed shortly after the Big Bang and of studying the atmospheres of extrasolar planets, searching for those most similar to Earth.

For more information:

• Public lecture: https://www.phys.uniroma1.it/fisica/archivionotizie/le-scoperte-del-telescopio-spaziale-james-webb-alla-sapienza
• Science workshop: https://www.pas.va/en/events/2024/astrophysics.html

Figure 1: Aurora borealis observed Sunday, November 5, from several sites in Italy.

The impact of a CME on Earth, however, is also associated with potentially damaging events for orbiting satellites, telecommunications, navigation systems, and ground facilities (such as power grids: a well-known example is the blackout that hit Quebec in March 1989). These are associated with, in the most extreme cases, possible biological hazards to astronauts.

The accurate and timely prediction of the arrival of a CME to Earth as well as the level of induced geomagnetic storm has thus become, especially recently, an extremely hot topic that has attracted the attention of many research institutes aiming to provide forecast models for these potentially dangerous solar events. In particular, the European Space Agency (ESA) has set up the Space Weather Service Network (SWESNET), designed to collect all the contributions provided by the different European research institutes. In July this year, the INAF-Turin Astrophysical Observatory provided ESA with an innovative forecasting algorithm (named Geomagnetic Effectiveness tool) based on the analysis of in-situ measurements of CMEs acquired by spacecraft orbiting around the Lagrangian point L1, located 1.5 million km from Earth in the Sunward direction. This is the first one on behalf of the National Institute of Astrophysics to be integrated onto the ESA Space Weather Service Network. The tool, developed by the INAF-Turin Astrophysical Observatory, as part of the “Heliospheric Space Weather Initiative” - HelioMeteo for short - which brings together collaborations with Aerospace Logistics Technology Engineering Company (ALTEC) and the University of Genoa, allowed accurate detection of the November 5 CME about 9 hours before the onset of the geomagnetic storm.

Figure 2: Output of the Geomagnetic Effectiveness tool: the CME, identified by the blue arrow, was revealed 9 hours ahead of the onset of the geomagnetic storm (red and blue dashed vertical lines, respectively).

“This is the first prediction of a space weather event made by an operational forecasting software developed by INAF for the Italian contribution to the ESA Space Weather Service Network”, says Silvano Fineschi of the INAF-Turin Astrophysical Observatory and head of the “HelioMeteo” initiative.

“The operational handling of the products Geomagnetic Effectiveness tool and CME Propagation Prediction tool is a matter of responsibility for ALTEC. For validation activities, the integration of scientific algorithms, including those exploiting machine learning techniques, and the integration of the products onto the ESA-SWESNET portal, the infrastructure of the Heliospheric Space Weather Data Center, developed and maintained by ALTEC at its Turin site, is used”, adds Filomena Solitro, program manager of the ALTEC “Science and Advanced Data Processing” sector.This result demonstrates not only the efficiency of the tool in predicting the imminent impact of CMEs on Earth, but also how the use of in-situ data can be successful in detecting and forecasting their potential geo-effectiveness. The INAF-Turin Astrophysical Observatory research group is currently working on the development and prototyping of other promising forecasting tools and models. In particular, it will be the lead partner, for INAF, of the Spoke Space, focused on Space Weather, in the PNRR SPACE IT UP program. In addition, it has over the years established a fruitful collaboration in HelioMeteo with the Department of Mathematics (DIMA) of the University of Genoa, for example in the context of the AIxtreme project, coordinated by Prof. Anna Maria Massone. The group, led by Prof. Michele Piana, will employ the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the development of new and even more accurate forecasting algorithms, exploring the full potential of AI in what is regarded as the approach of the future in space weather science. “This innovative strategy for Space Weather prediction” - says Michele Piana - “is based on the design of neural networks that are trained using archives of past and current space missions and are then able to forecast all types of events that characterize Space Weather, from solar flares, through the time of flight of CMEs, to magnetosphere impact measurements”.

The astronomers, led by researchers of the Purple Mountain Observatory (in China), used a new method developed to derive reliable photometry from sources "captured" by the Ultraviolet and Optical Telescope (UVOT), one of the three instruments aboard the Swift Observatory.

Stefano Covino, a researcher at INAF and the only Italian among the authors of the study, explains that "this discovery helps to reveal the origin of extremely energetic ultraviolet/optical flares and demonstrates the need for high temporal resolution observation in the first instants of the evolution of the phenomenon". And he adds: “Each GRB event shows original behaviours, but in general, we find that even the most extreme cases still fall into the same phenomenology. GRB220101A is no exception. It is therefore not a new category of GRB but plausibly an extreme case among those already known".

Why, then, is it a “monstre” case? Covino observes that “the reason is probably twofold. On the one hand, simply by accumulating more observations, it is possible to identify rarer cases that normally there would be a low probability of being able to observe. And in addition, there is a technical question which consists of having defined a procedure to obtain reliable information from satellite observations even when, as in this case, the data are saturated. This allowed us to have information in the first phase of this event and identify the impressive peak in brightness we are talking about".

Swift, Fermi and Agile have observed GRB220101A. “As always, when Swift identifies a GRB, the on-board small field of view telescopes, such as UVOT, are repointed, and data is obtained within seconds after the identification of the high energy event (the actual GRB). An excellent result for an instrument that has been flying since 2004! As soon as the identification alert arrived on the ground, the "ground-based" telescopes also began to observe. The Chinese 2.2m Xinglong telescope obtained the distance measurement via a spectrum, resulting in the remarkable value of z=4.6. At the time of the event that generated this GRB, the universe was just over a billion years old,” Covino says.

The researcher underlines the tremendous technical work done on this GRB: “First of all, we have to imagine that any optical telescope receives the luminous radiation from a celestial object and converts it into an image on its detector. Now, what happens is that, depending on the characteristics of the telescope, the image that is created for a point object, such as stars or even a GRB at cosmological distances, has a precise mathematical form (technically, it is the PSF). We can imagine a pointed hat with a point at the top and wide brims around it. Making "photometry" means measuring well this hypothetical hat's extension and height! However, in practice, for such brilliant events, the central part of the "hat" is erased, as if cut, and therefore it is impossible to obtain the necessary information. However, there are precise relationships between the height of the "hat" and the faults, which depend for telescopes in space (i.e. without the effect of the atmosphere) only on the technical characteristics of the telescope itself. With very detailed work, we measured the parameters of these relationships and then reconstructed the shape of the "hat" in retrospect to obtain complete photometric information. This too can be an example of how, even with an instrument that has been flying since 2004, we never stop improving”.

Despite decades of study, GRBs continue to show surprises. Covino concludes: “It almost seems they are an inexhaustible reservoir of extreme behaviours. They show how certain combinations of parameters lead to the prodigious optical luminosity observed in the real world. This has significant consequences for evaluating GRBs' impact on their host galaxies' environment.

Co-author of the paper, Hao Zhou, and first author, Zhi-Ping Jin, of the Purple Mountain Observatory, have a solid connection to Italy. Jin was a postdoc in Milan with Covino, while Zhou, a young man at the end of his doctorate, is currently visiting the INAF headquarters in Milan, where he works with Covino.

Related journal article:

“An optical/ultraviolet flare with absolute AB magnitude of -39.4 detected in GRB 220101A", Zhi-Ping Jin, Hao Zhou, Yun Wang, Jin-Jun Geng, Stefano Covino, Xue-Feng Wu, Xiang Li, Yi-Zhong Fan, Da-Ming Wei and Jian-Yan Wei, Nature Astronomy.

Contacts:

INAF press office - Marco Galliani, ufficiostampa@inaf.it, +39 3351778428

Giuseppe Piccioni, Co-Principal Investigator of the MAJIS instrument for INAF in Rome, explains: “Last week, the scanning mirror and shutter were activated and operated flawlessly. Observations of its internal calibration sources were performed, confirming the performances of the instrument aligned with the on-ground calibration. MAJIS is now ready to fulfil its mission, namely to study the surface composition and the exosphere of the icy moons and to characterise the composition and the dynamics of the atmosphere of Jupiter".

Among the objectives of MAJIS, the determination and mapping of the surface composition of the moons Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa are of the utmost importance, with particular emphasis on compounds other than water ice already known from previous observations or predicted by models, such as hydrated mineral salts, volatiles and organic compounds, and compositional mapping of the planet's atmosphere, including cloud density and aurora morphology. In this context, the MAJIS project aims to enhance and further develop the skills gained during the Jovian InfraRed Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) project operating around Jupiter on the NASA Juno mission.

“The completion of the first flight tests of the MAJIS instrument - says Raffaele Mugnuolo, head of Exploration, Infrastructures and Scientific Satellite Department at ASI - is a crucial step and one that instils great optimism for the continuation of the JUICE mission. The MAJIS spectrometer confirms the great and consolidated Italian capacity in this field for the engineering and scientific teams. The coordination exercised by ASI has proved effective in relations with CNES and towards ESA. It has allowed the completion of a complicated instrument that will pay off in unprecedented scientific return".

The MAJIS instrument was built by a French-Italian consortium led by Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale in Orsay, France, with CNES and ASI's support. The Italian contribution comes from INAF, the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica, with help from ASI and the industrial contract for the optical head from Leonardo S.p.A. in Florence. The instrument was initially assembled and calibrated at Leonardo, then at IAS-Orsay. Finally, it was housed aboard the JUICE satellite in December 2021. Belgian laboratories supported by Belspo were involved in characterising the MAJIS detectors.

Contacts:

INAF press office - Marco Galliani, ufficiostampa@inaf.it, +39 3351778428

ASI press office - Giuseppina Piccirilli, stampa@asi.it, +39 335 7821912

JANUS has been designed to provide multi-spectral high spatial resolution imaging from violet light to near-infrared. It will allow studying in depth the surface of the icy satellites Ganymede, Callisto and Europa, also assessing their sub-surface habitability. In addition, it will acquire data on the other components of the Jovian system, including Io and its intense volcanic activity, many small and irregular satellites, and the ring system. Last but not least, JANUS will acquire data on Jupiter's atmosphere dynamics at different depths.

Last week, the JANUS camera was commissioned: the instrument was commanded from the European Space Operation Center (ESOC, Darmstadt) to check all its hardware and software functionalities. JANUS’ main elements are a catadioptric telescope with a cover to protect from contamination, a baffle to reduce stray light, a filter wheel with 13 filters to select the wavelength range and a 3 Mpixel detector. The dedicated electronics unit controls the detector and digitalises its signal, while the central electronics unit distributes power to the instrument and controls the mechanisms. It also includes a computer with software that manages all instrument functionalities, receives telecommands and delivers telemetry and data to the ground through a satellite interface.

“JANUS has been designed to answer many JUICE mission’s scientific questions,” says Pasquale Palumbo (INAF in Rome), the team's principal investigator that designed, tested and calibrated the camera. “JANUS is very flexible. We can optimise acquisition parameters to the many different targets, observation requirements and conditions that JANUS will face”.

Performed activities included a full hardware check, with all subsystems activated and monitored through the relevant telemetries, commanding different configuration settings, and execution of science operations to verify the nominal conditions of the acquisition chain (from the detector to interface with the spacecraft).

“JANUS has represented a significant technological evolution of the optical cameras used in Solar system exploration missions. The creation of this instrument was very complex and challenging. Still, the Leonardo company has fully achieved its goal, which will allow us to make significant progress in the knowledge of these moons, candidates to host any life forms", adds Barbara Negri, head of Human Flight and Scientific Experimentation for ASI.

The behaviour of the optical system was also verified by observing a star field around eta Cyg; the excellent status of JANUS critical optical alignment and the integrity of the visual elements were confirmed.

“A quick look at the acquired data shows that everything was nominal. So, after this intense on-ground session, we can say: we have a (fully commissioned) instrument!” concludes Palumbo.

More information:

• JANUS is led by INAF-Institute for Space Astrophysics and Planetology in Rome in collaboration with INAF Padova and CISAS-Padua University, with hardware and software contributions from DLR-Institute for Planetary Research in Berlin, CSIC-Astrophysics Institute of Andalucia in Granada and Open University-Center for Electronic Imaging in Milton Keynes. The leading involved companies are Leonardo SpA (Prime Industry) and Sener. The reference Space Agencies funded JANUS for participating Institutes: ASI (lead funding agency), DLR, Spanish Research Ministry and UKSA.

• Juice deployments complete: final form for Jupiter - ESA web news

Contacts:

INAF press office - Marco Galliani, ufficiostampa@inaf.it, +39 3351778428

ASI press office - Giuseppina Piccirilli, stampa@asi.it, +39 335 7821912

The meeting is part of the project "Revealing the Milky Way with Gaia” (MW-Gaia)" funded by the COST initiative (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) and focuses on the Gaia crucial contribution to the study of stellar evolution along different evolutionary phases of the  HR diagram.

The conference is organized over 3.5 days. After a first overview by members of the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC) on the main data products published with Gaia third data release ( Gaia DR3), the meeting will specifically discuss the constraints that Gaia data can place on different aspects of stellar evolution as well as the synergies existing between Gaia and the present and future large spectroscopic surveys.

The INAF researchers are deeply involved in the Gaia mission as well as in a number of complementary surveys. They have  world-wide  acknowledged

expertise in the study of the different phases of stellar evolution.

The meeting will provide a unique opportunity to combine theoretical and observational expertise in stellar physics and in the study of the resolved stellar populations in the Milky Way. It will foster new collaborations and the development of new projects in fields that see the INAF researchers at forefront.

Dr. Shields is currently Vice President for Research & Creative Activity and Dean of the Graduate College and the former Chair of the Department of Physics & Astronomy at  Ohio University.

Dr. Shields received his bachelors degree from the University of Kansas and his PhD in Astronomy from the University of California at Berkeley. He held a postdoctoral appointment at the Ohio State University and a Hubble Fellowship at the University of Arizona prior to joining the faculty at Ohio University. In his research, Shields studies the physics  of  supermassive black holes in galaxies, using both ground-based and space-based observatories. He is also interested  in the interstellar medium, star formation,  and supernovae. He is an author on more than 110 papers in the peer-reviewed literature, and served for four years as a Scientific Editor of the Astrophysical Journal.

The LBT Board of Directors appointed Prof. Shields to serve as the Observatory’s new director following an extensive international search.

"We are excited to welcome Joe and look forward to working with him to maintain the prominent position of LBT as a world-class astronomical facility,” stated Adriano Fontana, Chair of the LBT Board of Directors. “Joe has a unique combination of astronomical experience, scientific vision and managerial capabilities that make him the perfect match for LBT. Joe will build on the unique role of LBT in fostering new astronomical discoveries and the development of cutting-edge observational techniques associated with adaptive optics and interferometry".

In accepting the Director position, Shields commented: "I am pleased and honoured to have the opportunity to lead the talented LBTO staff during the observatory’s next phase as a pioneer in the realm of extremely large optical telescopes.  The LBT has a storied history and vibrant future in technological innovation and astronomical discovery, enabled by the distinctive expertise of its partner institutions".

The LBT Board of Directors also extended its appreciation to Dr. Christian Veillet, who successfully led the Observatory during the last ten years, completing the installation and commissioning of the initial suite of scientific instruments.

LBT is a unique astronomical facility. Located on Mt. Graham in southeast Arizona, at an elevation of 3200m/10000 ft, the LBT has  two 8.4m (27.5 feet) mirrors  side-by-side like a pair of binoculars for a combined collecting area of a single 11.8m (38.7 feet) telescope. This unique design gives it the capabilities of a 23-m (75.5 feet) telescope in some observing modes, making it the first of the next-generation extremely large telescopes.

The LBT is an international collaboration among institutions in the United States, Italy and Germany. LBT Corporation partners are: The University of Arizona on behalf of the Arizona Board of Regents; Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica, Italy; LBT Beteiligungsgesellschaft, Germany, representing the Max-Planck Society, The Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam, and Heidelberg University; The Ohio State University, representing OSU, University of Notre Dame, University of Minnesota and University of Virginia.

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.

The CUBES project is carried out by a consortium of institutes from five countries, led by INAF together with Brazil, Germany, Great Britain and Poland.

On 15 February 2022, INAF President Marco Tavani and ESO Director General Xavier Barcons signed the CUBES Construction Agreement. After a preparatory study phase that lasted about a year (the so-called phase A), the operational phase (also called phase B) finally begins, involving the development of the instrument design, its construction and installation at the VLT.

“This is the first time that an instrument for the Very Large Telescope has been designed by an Italian-led consortium”, comments Marco Tavani, President of INAF. "This important stage testifies to the leadership role of the Italian astronomical community on the international scientific arena."

Modern telescopes are machines of remarkable complexity that require equally advanced instruments to be used at their best. The design and construction of new astronomical instruments represents a primary effort for the scientific community which sees in this an ambitious synthesis between scientific objectives and engineering opportunities.

As evidence of this continuous effort, the most advanced telescopes in the world, such as the VLT, experience the development of several generations of instruments throughout their "life". In this context, the CUBES project is an innovative tool dedicated to observing the sky in the ultraviolet portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, between 300 and 400 nanometers.

Astronomers observe the cosmos using a variety of technologies, from Earth and space, across the electromagnetic spectrum as well as through gravitational waves and the detection of neutrinos.

"The ultraviolet band is strongly absorbed by our atmosphere", adds Stefano Cristiani, principal investigator (PI) of CUBES, "but it contains unparalleled information on chemical elements, such as beryllium, that are key to understanding the evolution of stars, the explosion of massive objects, including the optical counterparts of gravitational wave sources and also basic aspects of cosmology and fundamental physics".

Building an efficient tool in such a complex observational band requires “a very complex design and optimization effort”, concludes Roberto Cirami, CUBES project manager.

Five amazing scientists will discuss the challenges of travelling across space, preparing for human missions to Mars, and what we can learn for life and sustainability on Earth.

Ambassador of Italy to Australia H.E. Francesca Tardioli will open the event.

The event panel will be moderated by Anna-Maria Arabia, Chief Executive of the Australian Academy of Science, Anna Maria Fioretti, Science Attaché at the Embassy of Italy, and Lillo Guarneri, Director of the Italian Cultural Institute in Sydney.

The panel

Prof. Elisabetta Barberio Not an empty Space: Cosmic Radiation and Dark Matter

Associate Professor Susanna Guatelli Protecting astronauts from the health hazards of the harsh space radiation environment: reality and simulation

Dr Stefania Peracchi Silicon mushroom: an innovative, miniaturised device for radiation protection of astronauts

Dr Eduardo Trifoni Manned entry to Mars and re-entry to Earth: an open engineering challenge

Dr Federica Turco: Interplanetary livestock: how insects could be our best resource on and away from our planet.

Free event - online and in-person attendance available. Light refreshments and a selection of Italian wines inlcuded for in-person attendees.

For more information and to book the event:

visit "The long journey of human missions to Mars and back to Earth" web page