Crediti: Iaa-Csic/Uhu
By
On

Haumea, or rather 136108 Haumea, whose discovery was officially announced in 2005, has been classified by the International Astronomical Union as a dwarf planet in 2008, and named after a Hawaiian goddess of fertility. The other recognized dwarf planets are  Pluto, Ceres, MakeMake and Eris. It is part of the “trans-neptunian” objects, namely beyond the orbit of Neptune, and is placed in the  Kuiper belt. It has a size comparable to Pluto, an “elongated” form  like a rugby ball, and is quite bright, the third brightest star in the Kuiper belt, after Pluto and Makemake,LEGGI TUTTO

By
On

  Ariel is a mission of the European Space Agency, whose launch is scheduled in 2029 and devoted to the study of the atmospheres of extrasolar planets, namely all those planets orbiting around stars which are similar or different from the Sun. Thanks to this space mission, for the first time it will be possible to carry on a systematic study of the properties and chemical composition of the atmosphere of these celestial bodies, to shed some light on the still obscure points about their formation and evolution. Italy is one ofLEGGI TUTTO

By
On

In this activity, we will discover how to realize holograms starting from the simulations of a few astrophysical objects, used by researchers in order to analyze physical, chemical, and morphological properties of the phenomenon they want to study. In order to do that, we will need a tool to record the display of our computer – we have used QuickTime, but you can use many other software, such as for example OBS – and Adobe Premiere Pro, a video-editing program. In order to start, we should select one of the 3D models publishedLEGGI TUTTO

By
On

Pluto is a dwarf planet placed in the Kuiper belt a doughnut-shaped region of icy bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. Discovered in 1930, Pluto has long been considered the ninth planet of our Solar System. However, after the discovery of similar worlds in the Kuiper belt, it has been reclassified as dwarf planet. Pluto is smaller than the Moon, and lies about 5,8 billions km from the Sun. It has a thin atmosphere, mainly composed of nitrogen, methane and carbon monoxide. On average, the temperature of Pluto is -232°C, andLEGGI TUTTO

By
On

On this page, we are showing interactive 3-D models reproducing some of the volumes stored on the shelves of the Historical Archive of INAF Astronomical Observatory of Palermo. In order to reproduce these objects, we used the technique of texturing, a methodology of graphic design, with which a primitive shape modelled in 3D is added to a texture taken by object scans, or by high-resolution photography. For the texturing process, we used black-and-white photos and volume scans. The images obtained were processed with Photoshop and textures were uploaded and mapped usingLEGGI TUTTO

By
On

On this page, we are showing the interactive 3D models which reproduce a few objects kept in the Museum of INAF Astronomical Observatory of Palermo. The technique used to reproduce these objects is photogrammetry: an image-capturing method that, starting from simple pictures taken by a digital camera allows you to create a tridimensional model. This simple process fits the logic of image-based modelling, namely 3D modelling based upon images and rendering methods starting from 2D pictures. First of all, place the object at the centre of a room (if it is large), orLEGGI TUTTO

By
On

Netpune is  the last planet of the Solar System in order of distance from the Sun. It takes Neptune almost 165 years to travel along an orbit around our star, and a little more than 16 hours to complete one full turn around itself. The picture on the right – taken by the Voyager 2 probe in 1989 – shows the presence of the Big Dark Spot, a system of storms with an average diametre of 14.000 km, which represents one of the largest atmospheric structures of the Solar System, afterLEGGI TUTTO

By
On

Saturn is the sixth planet of the Solar System in order of distance from the Sun and can be easily recognized by the series of rings surrounding it, mainly composed of principalmente da ice and dust. Saturn is classified as a gaseous planet, i.e. mainly composed of gas. Just like Jupiter,  its atmosphere is lashed by continuous winds, which can even reach 1800 km/h. In its North Pole there is a particular nebula called Saturn’s Exagon, which rotates around the central vortex of the North Pole. A unique feature in the whole Solar System!LEGGI TUTTO

By
On

Jupiter is the fifth planet of the Solar System  in order of distance from the Sun, and the largest of the whole Solar System: its mass is twice and a half the sum of the masses of all the other planets together! Jupiter is classified as a gaseous planet, namely mainly composed of gas. Its huge atmosphere is characterized by several bands, inside which we can observe the presence of numerous storms. Among them, the Big Red Spot stands out, an anticyclonic storms which has been going on for at least 300 years! HereLEGGI TUTTO

By
On

On February 18, 2021, shortly before 10 pm Italian time, Perseverance – the rover of the Nasa Mars 2020 mission – landed successfully on the surface of Mars. While humankind waited, breathless, imagining the ground of the red Planet quickly approaching the rover, something looked upwards, towards the sky covered by the large parachute. At first, nobody noticed, engrossed by the sand lifting up all around the rover, the stones, the pictures which Perseverance immediately gave us. However, within a few hours, someone went to review the images, and looking at the openLEGGI TUTTO

By
On

On November 16, 1974, from the radiotelescope of Arecibo, a peculiar radio message was sent out into space, towards the Hercules Globular Cluster, 25 thousand year-lights away from the Earth. The message was composed of 1679 binary digits (zero and one), one after the other. Why 1679? This number is the product of two prime numbers: 23 and 73. In this way, supposing that anyone receving it decides to order it in a quadrilateral, he/she will only be able to do this by ordering it in 23 lines and 73 columns, or 73 lines and 23LEGGI TUTTO

By
On

On  April 10, 2019, the researchers of the Event Horizon Telescope revealed to humankind the first image ever obtained of a  supermassive black hole, a black hole much more massive of normal stellar black holes. The image uncovers the black hole at the centre of a huge galaxy in the nearby  Virgo cluster, Messier 87. This black hole is 55 millions light-years away from us, and a mass of 6.5 and a half billions times the one of the Sun. Black holes are extremely compact objects, in which an incredible quantityLEGGI TUTTO