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INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera

INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera

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Olympics, three Italian bronze medalists from Transylvania – Media INAF

The Italian team with their companions. From left: Giulia Iafrate, Gaia Palumbo, Alessandro Fabi, Davide Barberi, Luca Rucco, Ettore Costantini, and Daniele Spiga. Credits: G. Iafrate/INAF

29 October 2025

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With 4Most, the night has 2,436 eyes – In its first five years of operation, it will analyze the light of 25 million celestial objects – Media Inaf

The 4Most instrument is ready for observations. The telescope is located at the top, while the lower section (the black boxes) houses two of the three spectrographs that break down starlight into thousands of chromatic components. Credits: Aip/A. Saviauk

22 October 2025

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GRB 250702B, an unusually long and repeating gamma-ray burst – ESO Press Release

The orange dot at the centre of this image is a powerful explosion that repeated several times over the course of a day, an event unlike anything ever witnessed before. The image, taken with ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), allowed astronomers to determine that the explosion didn’t take place in the Milky Way but in another galaxy. This gamma-ray burst, named GRB 250702B, was first spotted by high-energy telescopes on 2 July, but its location was uncertain. The image shown here was taken on 3 July with the VLT’s HAWK-I infrared camera, which accurately pinpointed the location of the source. The explosion appeared to be nested within another galaxy, later confirmed by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Different scenarios have been proposed to explain this event, such as the collapse of a massive star, or a star ripped apart by a black hole. But none of them can fully account for all the observed properties of the explosion unless the involved objects are rather unusual - Credit: ESO/A. Levan, A. Martin-Carrillo et al.

11 September 2025

Gender issues, News, Scientific news

September 23, 2025 – Monthly meetings on violence and gender issues – Fifth meeting with the researcher Camilla Gaiaschi

Locandina dell'incontro con la ricercatrice Camilla Gaiaschi - 23 settembre 2025 - Sala Belloni - Merate (LC)

2 September 2025

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Italy shines in Mumbai with three bronze medals – Media INAF

The Italian team on stage at the opening ceremony, accompanied by their team leaders. From left: Riccardo Brunetta, Francesco Leccese, Andrea Cusimano, Ilenia Trunfio, Gabriele Lambertini, and team leaders Marco Citossi (INAF-Trieste) and Benedetta Dalla Barba (our PhD student). Credits: Marco Citossi/INAF

26 August 2025

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Green light for Cubes – Media INAF

Rendering showing the appearance of CUBEs, the instrument that will be installed on one of the VLT telescopes at ESO’s Paranal Observatory.

8 August 2025

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Seven “Astri” in Tenerife to Observe the Gamma Sky – Media INAF

Giovanni Pareschi with the Astri-1 telescope in the background - Credits:

8 August 2025

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This is how we use your 5×1000 – Media INAF

Antonella Gasperini, senior technology manager at INAF in Arcetri, responsible for the protection and enhancement of historical scientific heritage. Credits: INAF

22 July 2025

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Astronomers witness newborn planet sculpting the dust around it – ESO Press Release

The image to the left, taken with ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), shows a possible planet being born around the young star HD 135344B. This star, located around 440 light-years away, is surrounded by a disc of dust and gas with prominent spiral arms. Theory predicts that planets can sculpt spiral arms like these, and the new planet candidate is located at the base of one of the arms, just as expected.

The image was captured with a new VLT instrument: the Enhanced Resolution Imager and Spectrograph (ERIS). The central black circle corresponds to a coronagraph –– a device that blocks the light of the star to reveal faint details around it. The white circle indicates the location of the planet.

The image to the right is a combination of previous observations taken with the SPHERE instrument also at the VLT (red) and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA, orange and blue). These and other previous studies of HD 135344B did not find signatures of a companion, but ERIS may have finally unveiled the culprit responsible for the star’s spiral disc - Crediti: ESO/F. Maio et al./T. Stolker et al./ ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/N. van der Marel et al.

21 July 2025

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For the first time, astronomers witness the dawn of a new solar system – ESO Press Release

This is HOPS-315, a baby star where astronomers have observed evidence for the earliest stages of planet formation. The image was taken with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), in which ESO is a partner. Together with data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), these observations show that hot minerals are beginning to solidify. In orange we see the distribution of carbon monoxide, blowing away from the star in a butterfly-shaped wind. In blue we see a narrow jet of silicon monoxide, also beaming away from the star. These gaseous winds and jets are common around baby stars like HOPS-315. Together the ALMA and JWST observations indicate that, in addition to these features, there is also a disc of gaseous silicon monoxide around the star that is condensing into solid silicates –– the first stages of planetary formation - Credit: ALMA(ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/M. McClure et al.

17 July 2025

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Between the ups and downs of a pulsar with Ixpe – Polarization reveals the Secret of PSR J1023+0038 – Media INAF

Artist's impression of the central regions of the PSR J1023+0038 system, showing the pulsar, the inner accretion disk, and the pulsar wind. Credits: Marco Maria Messa (University of Milan and INAF) and Maria Cristina Baglio (INAF)

15 July 2025

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Double detonation: new image shows remains of star destroyed by pair of explosions – ESO Press Release

This image, taken with ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), shows the supernova remnant SNR 0509-67.5. These are the expanding remains of a star that exploded hundreds of years ago in a double-detonation – the first photographic evidence that stars can die with two blasts. The data were captured with the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) instrument at the VLT. MUSE allows astronomers to map the distribution of different chemical elements, displayed here in different colours. Calcium is shown in blue, and it is arranged in two concentric shells. These two layers indicate that the now-dead star exploded with a double-detonation - Credit: ESO/P. Das et al. Background stars (Hubble): K. Noll et al.

2 July 2025