News

Fifty thousand orbits for AGILE, the all-Italian satellite

On 19 December 2016, at 06:08:53 UTC (+1 in Italy), a few months after celebrating its ten years in orbit, the AGILE satellite reached the significant milestone of 50 thousand orbits around the Earth since the day of its launch, 23 April 2007.

ExoMars mission sends first “spectacular” images from Mars

The CaSSIS team – explained Co-Principal Investigator Gabriele Cremonese from the INAF Observatory of Padua – is also working on the development of a software that makes 3D models from the images provided by the stereoscopic camera.

AHEAD Announcement of Opportunity Cycle 3

The AHEAD project solicits proposals for its program of transnational visits. Submission Deadlines: Call 1 (Experimental Facilities) 30 June 2018, Calls 2 and 3 (Data analysis) 31 December 2016

Ragazzoni and Salinari awarded the Feltrinelli Prize 2016 for the development of adaptive optics

Considered the “Italian Nobel Prize”, the award, established by entrepreneur and artist Antonio Feltrinelli, is given annually by the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei in five different disciplines.

The Italian National Institute for Astrophysics in second place in the world ranking of Nature

The scientific journal Nature has announced in recent days the list of the 100 best in the world scientific institutions with regard to international collaboration and scientific production: the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics is in second place overall.

ASTRI has 20-20 vision!

Wanted: an affordable telescope with a constant angular resolution over a wide field of view

Novae the Beryllium and Lithium factory

Paolo Molaro, astronomer at the National Institute for Astrophysics and head of a team of researchers, has discovered a high abundance of Beryllium-7 in the material expelled from Nova Sagittarii no. 2, a star discovered by amateur astronomer John Seach in 2015 in the constellation Sagittarius, one of the brightest celestial objects in its class in recent years, among the few visible to the naked eye.

New discoveries about gamma-ray bursts

Nature Communications recently published a study on the so-called short gamma-ray bursts (SGRB) carried out by an international team of scientists, including Stefano Covino and Paolo D’Avanzo from INAF/ Brera Astronomical Observatory

Fast Radio Burst, an open question

Less than ten years ago, a new class of celestial phenomena were discovered, Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs). They are transient radio impulses lasting a few milliseconds, so rapid that it is not possible to understand from which part of the sky they come from. They are sometimes detected by radiotelescopes, and were observed for the first time in real time in 2014 by Parkes radiotelescope in Australia.

JUNO probe successfully completes first Jupiter flyby

A flyby of planet Jupiter at a speed of more than 200 thousand kilometres per hour, up to a distance of about 4,200 kilometres from the surface of the gas giant. This is the target reached on 27 August by JUNO, NASA’s mission that has Italy as the main partner of the US Space Agency.

Alien Olivine on Vesta?

The olivine found on the surface of the Main Belt's asteroid studied by the Dawn mission may have been deposited in the last billion years by other celestial bodies, as a consequence of their impact. These are the results of a series of simulations conducted by a team of researchers led by Diego Turrini (INAF)

500 years of “Orlando Furioso” in Teramo

To celebrate 500 years of the first edition of Ludovico Ariosto’s chivalricpoem “Orlando Furioso”, in which the author imagines a space flight before its time, on 22 July 2016,the Astronomical Observatory of Teramo will host the play “Su l’ali del destrier verso la Luna”.

Super-Massive And Supersonic: The First Black Hole Studied With The Sardinia Radio Telescope

Using the brand-new Sardinia Radio Telescope (SRT), a giant parabolic dish of 64 meters diameter, a team of astronomers from the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) and the University of Cagliari have produced a detailed image of a super-massive black hole proceeding at high speed towards the core of the distant cluster of galaxies designed as 3C 129

CTA will have its permanent headquarters in Italy

The National Institute for Astrophysics wins the European competition: the board of the project has decided that the headquarters of the international organization leading one of the most prestigious infrastructure of modern physics will be located in Italy

Milky Way in Hi-GAL, a luxurious infrared map

The European project Hi-GAL has released the first map of our Galaxy obtained from the observations of the Herschel space telescope

Filippo Zerbi new scientific Director

The new scientific Director of the National Institute for Astrophysics is Filippo Zerbi. He was appointed during the meeting of the Board of Directors held on 21 March 2016

Starlight on show: a constellation of initiatives on the birth of Astrophysics

The Starlight, the Birth of Astrophysics exhibition is now open: organized by the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) under the patronage of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism (MIBACT), the exhibition will be open until 21 June 2016 at the INAF facilities in Arcetri (near Florence), Rome, Capodimonte (near Naples), Palermo and Padua.

AstroFIt2 – First Call – Ranking List

The grant will be offered to the 9 (nine) candidates with the highest grades. In case of withdrawal, the position will be replaced by the next in the ranking list.

JIRAM warms up

The probe Juno NASA is getting ready for his objective, Jupiter: the appointment to the insertion in orbit of the largest planet of the solar system is going to be on next July, 4. Among the many activities in preparation for that moment, the scientific team responsible for the Italian instrument JIRAM (InfraRed Jovian Auroral Mapper), one of the ten that equips the scientific payload of the mission, was turned on twice, on January 25 and February 9, to carry out some tests on its camera.

CHEOPS under polishing

In anticipation of the CHaracterising Exoplanets Satellite (CHEOPS) mission launch, scheduled for the end of 2017, the surface finishing and the polishing of CHEOPS flight primary mirror have begun, carried out by Media Lario SRL, a SME based in Bosisio Parini, near Lecco