Padua in the Exploration of the Universe

1
Paduain the Exploration of the Universe

• Cesare Barbieri
• Department of Astronomy
• University of Padua
• 23 September 1999
• Conference held on the occasion of the 31-st
  Annual Meeting of the Division for Planetary
  Sciences of the American Astronomical Society

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Introduction

• The aim of this conference is to provide a short
  history of the astronomical studies in Padua, and
  a brief (and necessarily incomplete) account of
  the present situation and foreseeable
  developments. I wish to thank the many colleagues
  who helped with the documentation.

Cesare Barbieri, 23 September 1999
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Index

• A brief history up to 1950
• The modern epoch Giuseppe Colombo, Leonida
  Rosino , Nicolo Dallaporta
• Italy joins ESA and ESO
• Observations, theories, space missions
• Cerenkov light, gravitational waves
• A panoramic on the future
• Conclusions
• To know more

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Padua

• City
• University, Astronomical Observatory, Research
  Institutes
• Accademia de Ricovrati (1599) ? Accademia
  Galileiana Patavina di Scienze Lettere e Arti
• Bishops, Colleges
• ...

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A Brief History - 1

• Pietro dAbano (c. 1250 - c.1315)
• teaching of the ptolemaic system
• Giovanni Dondi dallOrologio
• (1318 - 1389)
• the astrarium a mechanical model of the
  ptolemaic system

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A Brief History - 2 Galileo Galilei in Padua
(1592 - 1610)
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A Brief History - 3

• LAccademia de Ricovrati (1599)
• (Accademia Galileiana Patavina di Scienze
  Lettere e Arti)
• Geminiano Montanari (1633 - 1687)
• Comet Halley
• St. Gregorio Barbarigo (1625 - 1697)
• the professors
• the Specola of the Seminario
• the printing house
• the laboratory of physics

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A Brief History - 4

• Giuseppe Toaldo (1719 -1797)
• the Specola (decree of the Republic of Venice,
  1761), meteorology, (extra-solar planets)
• Giovanni Santini (1787 - 1877)
• cometary orbits, Cataloghi Padovani of stellar
  positions, Lezioni of Astronomy and Optics
• Giuseppe Lorenzoni (1843 - 1914)
• astronomical photometry and spectroscopy,
  geodesy

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The Specola of Padua (1767)
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A Brief History - 5 The Mathematicians

• Gregorio Ricci Curbastro (1853 - 1925)
• Tullio Levi Civita (1873 - 1941)
• Tensor Calculus and General Relativity
• Mechanics

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A Brief History - 6 Bruno Rossi (1905 -
1993)Antonio Rostagni (1904-1988)

• The Institute of Physics (1938)
• The East - West asymmetry of cosmic rays
• Cosmic rays observations using balloons

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A Brief History - 7Giovanni Silva (1882 -
1957)The Astrophysical Observatory of Asiago
(1942)
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A Brief History - 8Geodetic Astronomy

• the polar motion and the International Latitude
  Service
• the contribution to the Carloforte station
  (founded in 1899) Ciscato, Bianchi
• Soler, Boaga, Tomelleri

G. Ciscato
E. Soler, Rector
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The Modern Epoch

• Giuseppe Colombo
• Leonida Rosino
• Nicolo Dallaporta
• Italy joins the European Space Agency and the
  European Southern Observatory
• The space telescopes, the Center for Space
  Activities (CISAS)
• Cerenkov light and gravitational Waves

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Giuseppe Colombo(1920 - 1984)

• Celestial Mechanics, rotation of Mercury, space
  navigation
• the GIOTTO mission and the InterAgency
  Consultative Group
• space geodesy

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Leonida Rosino (1915 - 1997)

• The Schmidt telescopes and the Cima Ekar
  Observatory
• variable stars, Novae and Supernovae
• open and globular clusters
• diffuse and planetary nebulae
• the Corso di Laurea in Astronomy

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Nicolo Dallaporta

• Evolution of the Solar System, Stars and Galaxies
• General Relativity
• Theoretical Cosmology
• The Anthropic Principle
• Science, Metaphysics, Faith

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Telescopes and their Instrumentation,
Observations, Theories and Models, Space
Missions
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The Observing Station L. Rosino at Cima Ekar
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The 3.5 m National Telescope Galileo (TNG)
Active Optics
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The TNG - Adaptive Optics
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Detectors, Instrumentation,Controls, Data
Archives

• Image Intensifiers, photon counters, solid state
  devices,
• OIG (the visual camera for the TNG), SARG (the
  high resolution spectrograph for the TNG)
• Data archives Guide Star Catalogue II, ...

From the first CCD for the 182 cm (1984) to the
OIG TNG (1998)
SARG and a first comparison spectrum
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Solar System - 1

• Meteorites
• Lunar Sodium
• Asteroids and Comets

Iron meteorite
Acqueous Alteration in the spectra of asteroids
H2O in Kohoutek comet
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Solar System - 2

• Sodium in the Giovian system and in comets
• Pluto

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Solar System - 3 Formation
models of planetesimal accumulation and
formation of planetary embryos in the
terrestrial region
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Extra-solar Planets, Low Mass Stars
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Stellar Evolution - 1

• The final destiny of stars depends on the
  initial mass of the central core

Supernovae
Abscissa central temperature Ordinate density
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Stellar Evolution - 2 Open Clusters
Evolution of the stars in an open cluster
including the so-called overshooting process
the cluster turns out to be older than in
previous theories.
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Globular Clusters - 1

• NGC 6397 the cluster with the smallest distance
  modulus

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Globular Clusters - 2

• Pal 1 the youngest globular cluster in the
  Milky Way (about 8 billion years)

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Globular Clusters - 3The Bulge-halo Connexion
An H-R diagram in the near IR of the galactic
bulge, down to stars of mass 0.15 Mo
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Planetary Nebulae
H?
O III
N II
3D Tomography in different spectral lines
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Variable Stars

• Flare stars, binaries
• Cataclismic variables, evolution and connexion
  with solar actvity
• Simbiotic stars

M57 - TNG
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Novae

• In the Milky Way
• In M31 and in M33

Novae as extra-galactic distance indicators
absolute magnitude as function of the decline
rate. Dashed line theoretical track as
function of the mass of the White Dwarf.
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Supernovae -1

• Discovery and classification

SN 19991 - The discovery with OIG-TNG
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Supernovae - 2 Search of SNs Associated to Gamma
Bursts
Supernova 1998bw associated to the Gamma Burst
GRB 980425
The discovery, the light curve, the spectum
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Supernovae - 3 The High Redshift SNs
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Relativistic Astrophysics - 1SS 433
Pulsar in the Crab
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Relativistic Astrophysics - 2 The Structure of a
Black Hole
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Galaxies - 1

• Morphology, rotation curves, dark mass
• Theoretical models of elliptical galaxies

Growth of the apparent dimensions of M87 from
1932 to 1969 thanks to the improvements in image
acquisition and analysis
Tidal Effect of a dark halo
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Galaxies - 2

• Elliptical galaxies halos, anisotropies,
  triaxiality
• Counter-rotation between gas and stars

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Stellar Populations in the Galaxies of the Local
Group
Phoenix, a nearby galaxy resolved in stars the
blue ones are young stars overimposed to an
older population
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Theoretical Synthesis of Spectra of Normal
Galaxies
Comparison between observations (upper lines) and
theory (lower lines)
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Active Galaxies the Nuclear Region
Optical jet of the Radiogalaxy (also a BL
Lac) Pks 0521-365 from ground and space a) jet
plus galaxy b) only jet
compact emission at 0.3
HST
ESO -NTT
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NGC 6240 An Active Galaxy with Violent Star
Formation
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Two Clusters of Galaxies at an Intermediate
Redshift
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Quasars
Optical variability of 3C 345
The luminosity function of bright QSOs
The Ly-alpha forest
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The Formation of Cosmic Structures

• Numerical Simulation of a large cluster of
  galaxies having a mass of 1015 Mo/H and a scale
  of 6 Megaparsec, made with a parallel
  supercomputer Cray T3E

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The Sunyaev-Zeldovich Effect and the Hubble
Constant H0
Direct measurement of the distance scale in the
Universe
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The Spectrum of the Extragalactic Background in
the Far InfraRed
The background radiation between 10 and 1000
micron is dominated by a population of galaxies
strongly evolving with the cosmic time. Therefore
the vision in the optical band of the primordial
Universe is severely limited.
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The European Giotto Mission

• The Halley Multicolour Camera
• The nucleus of Halleys comet

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The European Hipparcos Mission Astrometry at the
Milliarcsec level
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UVCS on the Solar Heliospheric Observatory
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HASI the Instrument for Titans Atmospheric
Structure

• In flight on the Huygens probe of the Cassini
  spacecraft toward Saturn and Titan

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Cerenkov Light and Gravitational Waves

• Cosmic Rays, CLUE and future expansions
• Gravitational Waves

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Projects for the Future

• Wide field prime focus for the telescopes VST,
  LBT and TNG
• The European missions Rosetta, Mars Express,
  FIRST/Planck
• Earth Surveys from space
• and (hopefully)
• astronomical instruments on the International
  Space Station
• Missions to Mars e Mercury
• The European Astrometry Mission Gaia
• Astrobiology
• The UltraLarge Telescopes

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The Prime Focus for the Large Binocular Telescope
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The Near-IR Prime Focus of the TNG
Spectral range from 1.0 to 2.5 micrometres with a
HgCdTe sensor
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The European Mission Rosetta
(2003-2013)
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The European Mission Mars Express (2003)

• The Planetary Fourier Spectrometer (PFS) for the
  study of the atmosphere and of the soil of Mars

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The European MissionFIRST/Planck (2007)
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GAIA - The Future Mission for Microarcsec
Astrometry
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Public Outreach

• Catch the Stars in the Net!
• www.pd.astro.it/stelle.html
• Voyage in the Cosmos
• (the exibition of 1997, in the Internet and a
  CD-Rom)
• Impacts
• (in the Internet since 1999)

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Exhibitions

• Halley and Giotto (1985 - 1986)
• From Galileo to GALILEO (1996)
• That Night on the Moon (1999)

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Conclusions

• High visibility in the world-wide community
• Possible future expansions
• - the new frame of the Istituto Nazionale di
  Astrofisica (INAF)
• - consolidation of the structure of Space
  Activities

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To Know More

• www.pd.astro.it
• cisas.unipd.it
• www.dei.unipd.it
• www.infn.it

Cesare Barbieri, 23 September 1999