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This image was taken by the ASTER sensor installed on the NASA TERRA satellite platform. The image was taken on 27 July 2005 and shows the north-eastern part of Sardinia. The RGB representation is composed of the 8-3-2 bands of…
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Remote satellite sensing: what it is and what it is used for In the scientific field, the images produced by the sensors on board Earth observation satellites make it possible to observe vast territories and investigate beyond simple human vision.…
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When walking along a tree-lined avenue in a crowded and traffic-congested city, wrapped up in our daily commitments, we do not usually notice the trees under whose shade we are walking, nor do we ask ourselves which benefits they bring…
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Easter Island is shaped like a triangle with three extinct volcanoes placed at the vertices, and has a total area of 163 square kilometres, therefore just a little smaller than Milan. It lies in the middle of the Pacific Ocean,…
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When we think of scientists, we often imagine people wearing white coats, shut up in a laboratory working with test tubes and sensitive instruments or engaged in complex equations, dealing with matters that are unintelligible to ordinary folk. However, this…
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Rerum fores aperuisse, Anaximander Milesius traditur primus. Anaximander the Milesian is reported to have been the first to open the doors of nature. [Pliny, Natural History, II, 31] It is with this quotation from Pliny the Elder, the famous naturalist…
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Colours are part not only of our culture and our figures of speech, but also of our daily life. Only rarely, however, do we stop to think of the primary role that colours have in our lives. For example, let's…
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Asbestos, the name of which derives from the ancient Greek term asbestos, meaning “unquenchable”, is also known as amianthus, also from the ancient Greek amiantos, meaning “incorruptible”. As both names suggest, the fibres of the minerals that are classified in…
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White sandy beaches where winter never comes, the most exhilarating Carnivals in the world, the largest forest on Earth: these are some of the rarities for which Brazil is known. Yet, between the layers and folds of very ancient rock,…