INAF Arcetri Journal

The monthly newsletter of the INAF Astrophysical Observatory of Arcetri

Special Issue | 2024

The monthly newsletter of the Arcetri Observatory is back with a new, completely web-based edition, easy to navigate and rich in hypertext content. Its purpose is to go through and highlight the main news concerning our Observatory: technological milestones, scientific news, grants, awards, projects updates, events and more.
The main target audience of INAF Arcetri Journal is the internal community, but anyone can have access to it. It is a useful tool to keep internal communication active and have a constantly up-to-date flow of information, in order to optimize the impact of our activities in our community and INAF at large, to other stakeholders and to society.

Rossella Spiga, INAF Arcetri Journal editor

Highlights

Board 2024: Simone Esposito is the Director of the INAF Astrophysical Observatory of Arcetri from January 2024 to December 2026. Elena Amato is in charge as a Deputy Director.
Members of the Observatory Council are: Edvige Corbelli (RSN1), Germano Sacco (RSN2), Aldo Dell'Oro (RSN3), Giovanni Morlino (RSN4), Lorenzo Busoni (RSN5), Serena Donati (Administration), Antonella Gasperini and Jacopo Lenzi as elected members of INAF Arcetri personnel.

The Large Binocular Telescope: 20 Years

The year 2024 marks the 20th anniversary of the Large Binocular Telescope. With its two mirrors on a common mount, yielding light collecting area equivalent to a single 11.8m-diameter aperture and resolution provided by a 22.8m edge-to-edge baseline, the LBT remains one of the most powerful optical/infrared telescopes in the world. The LBT has been a leader in advancing observational technology reflected in telescope design, adaptive optics capability, and instrumentation.

The Arcetri Adaptive Optics group and the Large Binocular Telescope, Il Colle di Galileo, Simone Esposito

Wide Field Spectroscopic Telescope: The European Union funds the conceptual study

November 4th - A contract was signed to fund the conceptual study of the Wide Field Spectroscopic Telescope (WST), which could become operational in Chile after 2040. The consortium leading the WST project will receive three million euros to fund a detailed conceptual study over the next three years, from 2025 to 2027. The innovative WST project aims to build a telescope dedicated entirely to wide-field spectroscopic surveys in the optical band, covering all types of celestial objects—from distant galaxies to asteroids and comets within our Solar System. The project was selected as part of the European Union’s Horizon Europe Framework Program through a competitive call for research infrastructures.

Deputy Principal Investigator: Sofia Randich

Press release:
https://www.wstelescope.com/press-releases

Wst, tre milioni di euro per lo studio concettualeFirmato il contratto per il finanziamento dello studio concettuale del Wide Field Spectroscopic Telescope, un innovativo telescopio che potrebbe essere operativo in Cile dopo il 2040. Il consorzio internazionale, che include 19 istituti di

ANDES: ESO signs agreement with an international consortium for the design and construction

June 5th - ESO has signed an agreement with an international consortium of institutions for the design and construction of ANDES, the ArmazoNes high Dispersion Echelle Spectrograph. The ANDES instrument will be installed on ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT). It will be used to search for signs of life in exoplanets and look for the very first stars, as well as to test variations of the fundamental constants of physics and measure the acceleration of the Universe’s expansion. The agreement was signed by ESO’s Director General, Xavier Barcons, and by Roberto Ragazzoni, the President of INAF, the institution leading the ANDES consortium. The signing took place at the ESO Headquarters in Garching, Germany.

Principal Investigator: Alessandro Marconi

Press release: https://www.eso.org/public/announcements/ann24010

Via libera ad Andes, alla ricerca di vita su altri mondiOggi Eso ha firmato l’accordo con un consorzio internazionale guidato da Inaf per la progettazione e la costruzione di Andes, uno strumento di altissima tecnologia che sarà installato su Elt. Andes verrà utilizzato per cercare segni di

FATE: forecasting optical turbulence to push the Very Large Telescope to its full potential

The INAF has won an ESO international call for proposals aimed at producing forecasts of optical turbulence 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.

Principal Investigator: Elena Masciadri

Read the news: http://www.inaf.it/en/inaf-news/fate-project

Prevedere la turbolenza ottica? Ora ci pensa Fate

INAF Arcetri joins
the MAUVE survey program

December 2nd - The INAF Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri has officially joined the Mauve survey programme as a founding member. Scheduled for launch in October 2025, Mauve will dedicate thousands of observational hours annually to study stars within our galaxy, focusing on their magnetic activity, powerful flares, and the influence of host stars on the habitability of nearby exoplanets, enhancing our understanding of stellar dynamics and their impact on planetary systems. The INAF Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri will use Mauve to address key scientific questions within the framework of the ERC’s advanced grant project “StarDance: the non-canonical evolution of stars in clusters” (PI: Elena Pancino).

Leadership: Elena Pancino

Press release:
https://bssl.space/inaf-osservatorio-astrofisico-di-arcetri-joins-mauve/

JWST approved programs

Stellar Physics and Stellar Types | Sailing with the winds of HL Tau towards the origin of rings and gaps in protoplanetary disks
Francesca Bacciotti (PI), Claudio Codella, Davide Fedele, Fabrizio Massi, Thomas Nony, Linda Podio.

Stellar Populations and the Interstellar Medium | Anatomy of a Low-Metallicity Starburst
Leslie Hunt (PI)

Cycle 3 GOReview approved JWST General Observer (GO) programs for Cycle 3

Technological milestones

PLATO: Delivery of the flight model of the Instrument Control Unit

December 5th - The PLATO Payload's Instrument Control Unit (ICU) has been finally delivered from Kayser Italia (Livorno, Italy) to OHB Munich for the integration into the PLATO Spacecraft Service Module.
This is the last step of the ICU design and development activities started in 2010 by the ICU Scientific Team to which the INAF Arcetri Space Technologies Team contributed thanks to the Unit System Engineering task led by Mauro Focardi, On-board Control Procedures (OBCPs) developed by Simone Chiarucci and Boot SW requirements engineering and testing managed by Marina Vela Nunez.

Read the news: http://www.inaf.it/it/notizie-inaf/consegna-icu-plato

Proba-3 ESA mission lifted-off

December 5th - Proba-3 ESA mission lifted off on a PSLV-XL rocket from the ISRO Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India.
INAF contributed to the realization of ASPIICS (Association of Spacecraft for Polarimetric and Imaging Investigation of the Corona of the Sun), the main instrument: a visible light coronagraph, but also to the SPS (Shadow Position Sensors), the ultimate metrology system allowing the final positioning of the two spacecraft with a sub-millimeter accuracy. The design was co-engineered between INAF and the Irish company SensL (now On-Semi).

INAF Arcetri was involved in the co-engineering of SPS in conjunction with the Irish company SensL (now On-Semi). The "commissioning phase" will proceed switching on SPS and, at that point, Vladimiro Noce will be involved as an expert of the instrument to analyze and interpret the levels of luminosity measured.
Read the news: https://www.arcetri.inaf.it/articoli/scientific-news/proba-3-esa-mission-lifted-off

Ariel ESA mission: ICU EM model delivery

March 11th - The Instrument Control Unit (ICU) EM model has been delivered to AMC/INAF from Kayser Italia (ASI/INAF Industrial Contractor). Incoming inspection and acceptance test was successfully done at INAF premises under the supervision of ASI/INAF PA Managers. INAF is developing the Application SW that will be debugged by means of the reduced Spacecraft IF Simulator (SIS#1) and the ICU EGSE. The SIS is the black rack, behind the ICU box, in the picture. Both ICU EM and ASW will be delivered then in Autumn to RAL Space for AIT&V activities at Payload level, following a formal delivery from Kayser to ASI. A similar EM (AVM) model, will be delivered from ASI/INAF to ESA/ADS in January next year for test at Spacecraft AVM level.

Coordinator: Mauro Focardi

Ariel ESA mission: Primary mirror, instruction to use

June - In one of the laboratories of the FERRET team of INAF Arcetri, a long measurement campaign took place on the M1 primary mirror of the ARIEL space mission (1.2x0.75 m, aluminium). Many results were obtained, among which the development of the fixing procedure of the mirror itself, its handling and finally the demonstration that through a system that allows the mirror to be overturned, a measurement of the shape of the surface can be achieved optical as if the mirror were in the absence of gravity, net of measurement errors and systematic errors.

Coordinator: Andrea Tozzi, Mechanical workshop: Gilberto Falcini, Luca Carbonaro.

Read the news: https://www.arcetri.inaf.it/articoli/scientific-news/m1-ariel-space-mission-measurement-campaign

Science

on press and media

Osservazioni non standard per le galassie di WebbI dati del telescopio spaziale James Webb sembrano non confermare le ipotesi del modello standard di formazione delle galassie nell’universo primordiale. Le osservazioni sono invece in accordo con la teoria della gravità modificata Mond,

Potenziale biofirma in una roccia marzianaAlcune caratteristiche della roccia Cheyava Falls potrebbero indicare la presenza di vita microbica primordiale su Marte, risalente a un'era in cui nell'area esplorata dal rover Perseverance della Nasa scorreva acqua. Gli scienziati stanno

Giovani ammassi stellari come acceleratoriGli ammassi di stelle giovani sono in grado di accelerare le particelle cosmiche e produrre radiazione ad alta energia. È quanto emerge da uno studio, condotto sui dati raccolti dallo strumento Lat del telescopio spaziale Fermi e pubblicat

Dalle cavità di polvere ai pianeti rocciosiGrazie al telescopio Alma è stato possibile osservare per la prima volta una cavità conica contenente grani di polvere grande migliaia di unità astronomiche nella regione di formazione stellare della Corona Australe. La materia presente

Presentate le prime immagini di Ska-LowOsservazione di 24 ore con una singola stazione Ska-Low, uno dei due telescopi dell'Osservatorio Ska, attualmente in costruzione in Australia occidentale. Nelle immagini ottenute dalle antenne costruite in Italia uno sguardo al futuro dell'

Diciannove galassie a spirale prêt-à-porterSono state rese pubbliche le immagini di diciannove galassie a spirale nell'universo vicino ritratte nel dettaglio da Jwst. Le immagini fanno parte del progetto internazionale Phangs, che ha l'obiettivo di chiarire i meccanismi di formazion

Con gli occhi puntati verso gli alieni: «Così cerchiamo l'acqua extraterrestre e da Arcetri porteremo il grano su Marte»Intervista all'astrobiologo John Robert Brucato tra gli organizzatori al Museo degli Innocenti dal 21 al 24 maggio della prima International Astrobiology School

Arcetri, AI importante anche in astronomiaLo afferma lo studio coordinato dagli scienziati Inaf dell'Osservatorio fiorentino nel settore della spettroscopia per la conoscenza dello spazio

Intelligenza artificiale che legge tra le righeSi chiama M-Topnet ed è un nuovo modello di rete neurale progettato per stimare dagli spettri delle galassie quantità fondamentali come redshift, massa stellare e tasso di formazione stellare. Oltre a estrarre le grandezze richieste, M-To

Awards and assignments

Edvige Corbelli

IAU International Astronomical Union

Vice-President of Division H Interstellar Matter and Local Universe
https://www.iau.org/administration/membership/individual/7947/

Elena Amato
IUPAP International Union of Pure and Applied Physics
Member Commission C4 Astroparticle Physics
https://iupap.org/who-we-are/internal-organization/commissions/c4-astroparticle-physics/

Da Firenze allo spazio, con due ambasciatori

Sofia Randich e Pietro Ubertini dell’Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica sono stati nominati “Ambasciatori della Città di Firenze” per avere promosso lo svolgimento della 44ma assemblea generale del Comitato internazionale sullo spazio Cospar, che si terrà a Firenze dall’1 al 9 agosto 2026.