Highlights

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

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

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

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

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!

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 morphology of the X-ray afterglows and of the jetted GeV emission in long gamma-ray bursts

In a new article published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, an ICRA-ICRANet research team (some of them INAF associates) sheds light on the mass and spin of stellar-mass BHs from an extensive analysis of long-duration GRBs

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

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

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

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”

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

The role of the Sun in the spread of viral respiratory diseases

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”

Prof. Nichi D'Amico, President of the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics passed away at 67

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

Fermionic dark matter in our Galactic core?

Olivier Le Fevre - in memoriam

On June 25, the astronomer Olivier Le Fevre passed away

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