In recent years, we have also hosted at EGO and Virgo Bob Wilson, the world-renowned theatre director and playwright, Ana Schurmann, composer, singer and designer, and the sculptor Antonio Signorini, with whom we hope to continue the dialogue we have begun.
Spaceful by Attila Faravelli; 8 Bit Cosmo Beats by Mario Salvucci and Massimo Magrini and Performances, interviews by Inigo Cabo.
Palpita by Pedro Torres , a project curated by Carolina Ciuti; Memorie D’Onda by Roberto Malfagia, Massimo Magrini and Marianna Miozzo; Dream Hunting by Alice Paltrinieri with Spazio Taverna; Frange di Interferenza by Luca Serasini and Massimo Magrini
Among the most recent projects: How to hear the Universe in a spider/web by Tomàs Saraceno, Gravity’s Dance by @lilianelijn.bsky.social; Firmamento by Quiet Ensemble; In My End is My Beginning by Lulù Nuti with Spazio Taverna
Today is World Art Day, created by UNESCO 🎨 In recent years, we have fostered dialogue between the field of gravitational-wave science and contemporary art, welcoming many artists who have visited Virgo and created works and projects inspired by our themes ✨
📷Artwork by Pedro Torres
The virtual tour programme will continue next year too, thanks to the European PICO - New Horizons project, which has just been funded by the European Union 🎉
130 secondary schools from Greece, Ireland, Brazil, Romania, India, England, Pakistan, the United Kingdom, Italy, France, Croatia and Sri Lanka took part 🗺️ Young people from all over the world overcame language barriers (and time zones 😴) to explore Virgo and gravitational waves together 🧐
3,000 students from all over the world have visited Virgo remotely during this school year 🤯 This was made possible by the guided tours organised as part of the European project PICO – Physics for All by EGO, with the support of Ellinogermaniki Agogi.
Building on the success of PICO, PICO – New Horizons will continue to engage people of all ages in research, encouraging them to rediscover science as a collaborative, creative and human endeavour.
PICO – New Horizons will expand its scope to include issues such as climate change, natural hazards, the green transition, green buildings, and nature-based solutions, showing how fundamental research underpins sustainable technologies.
The awareness campaign is expected to reach over 400,000 citizens; it will involve 10,000 students and provide training for over 200 researchers across Europe 🌍
EGO, already a partner in PICO, continues its commitment alongside scientific institutions from ten European countries, including the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN), Institut de Física d'Altes Energies (IFAE) and The Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
Building on the success of its predecessor PICO, the project aims to connect cutting-edge physics with society through outreach and engagement activities 🤝
The European Union has approved funding of approximately €350,000 for the PICO – New Horizons project through the MSCA and Citizens 2025 call! (1/6)
April Fools’ Day 🐟 this post was an April Fools’ Day joke, the warp drive remains science fiction for now, but gravitational wave science will continue to let us explore the universe through present and future detectors 🌌
📣A competition for access to the patent, aimed at small start-ups, will open today at 16:00 CET. Aerospace entrepreneur Jack Pesos has already expressed keen interest in the initiative. All the details will be published from 16:00 CET in our stories.
Image credits: Genty/Pixabay
“Research into gravitational waves, long considered purely speculative,” said research group coordinator Una Chin-Riley of the University of Noonien, “has not only dramatically expanded our ability to listen to the cosmos, but is now ushering in a new era of human exploration of the universe.”
namely small ‘spontaneous’ shifts in the space-time fabric of our Universe.
The new engine will allow a probe – and even a small spacecraft – to ‘glide’ through these micro-fractures in space-time, progressively accelerating to speeds never before imagined, and potentially exceeding that of light.
developed by researchers at the Universities of Noonien in France and Borg in the Netherlands 📝
The new research, which forms the basis of European patent EPGW170817 filed in recent days, has revealed the existence of microgravity phenomena
Having become a scientifically plausible concept thanks to the work of theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre in the late 1990s, the warp drive could actually become a reality, thanks to the analysis of signals detected by the Virgo gravitational wave detector
A new patent, filed by the European Gravitational Observatory, will turn the warp drive – the technology that allows the starships in Star Trek to travel faster than the speed of light – into reality 🚀
This is the final video of our coverage of the LIGO - Virgo - KAGRA Meeting in Pisa, we look forward to the next one in Pune, India!
Why is the @ligo.org - Virgo - KAGRA meeting so important? Why do people from all over the world travel to meet in person? Let’s hear it from the participants of the meeting that took place in Pisa this month 🗺️
@cnrs-in2p3.bsky.social @cnrsingenierie.bsky.social @cnrscotedazur.bsky.social
We had a chat with Marie Anne Bizouard, @cnrs.fr researcher, just after her election as spokesperson of the Virgo Collaboration, during the @ligo.org - Virgo - KAGRA Collaboration meeting in Pisa 💬
Here’s what she said about this role and the future of Virgo 🎤
“I feel the responsibility that comes from Virgo’s history and the scientific results it has achieved to date, and I will do my utmost, using all the tools at our disposal, to ensure that Virgo and our community continue to produce great science in the future.”
“It is an extraordinary honour and a privilege for me to represent such a large and dedicated scientific collaboration working on one of the most cutting-edge and fascinating topics in physics today,” said Marie Anne Bizouard.
She will succeed Gianluca Gemme, researcher at the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN), who we thank for his great work in the past three years leading the collaboration.
The spokesperson is the person responsible for the scientific coordination of the collaboration and for representing it externally, and it is elected by the international representatives of the Virgo scientific groups.
We are happy to announce that Marie Anne Bizouard, researcher at @cnrs.fr in Nice, has been elected as the new spokesperson for the Virgo Collaboration, with effect on May 3rd. She is the first woman appointed in this role, since the Collaboration foundation in the late 1980s.
