Art and science together on Nature Astronomy
28 February 2020 | Written by La redazione
The cover of the February issue of the scientific journal was created by three students of the Modigliani artistic high school in Padua
Scientific subjects are fundamental in the formation of a person, but this does not mean that education in humanities and artistic subjects must fail, quite the opposite, they must integrate to generate new and deeper content. This is the spirit of STEAM, Science, Technology, Enginering, ARTS and Mathematics. Art as a profound stimulus to create new meanings capable of being understood by everyone. With this in mind, the February cover of Nature Astronomy was born, the prestigious scientific magazine that on the front page shows the work of three students of the “Modigliani” artistic high school in Padua.
The subject. The leading article in the February issue concerns a study of ten researchers from France, Germany and Italy on Blazars: extreme sources of radiation associated with supermassive black holes. Part of the material near the black hole that is not swallowed is channeled through the action of the magnetic field and escapes the enormous attraction of these celestial covers generating a huge jet of plasma.
The study investigated a small fraction, less than 1%, of blazars (the extreme blazars), which has a particularly intense emission in the X and gamma rays from the jet. A sort of census that found that some of the most energetic blazars escape the prevailing theoretical model of acceleration and emission: it is not explained in fact how particles such as protons and electrons are accelerated in these objects to generate these energetic gamma rays.
The work. As part of the teaching experience of school-work alternation between the Department of Physics and Astronomy “Galileo Galilei” of the University of Padua and the Paduan artistic high school, this collaboration was born that brought three young girls, Emily Ampezzi, Beatrice Del Piccolo and Chiara Slave, to create a faithful but artistic representation of these mysterious cosmic objects.