Highlights

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

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

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

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

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

Vesta, tell us about the childhood of the Solar System

The Third WEAVE All-Hands Meeting

17-20 September 2018, Naples, Italy

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.