Workshop –  MAY 5 AT 5 pm at BLA

 Why observing Earth from space is good for us?

With the intention of highlighting the importance of visual literacy education, the Ennesimo Film Festival has sought to involve the Italian Space Agency in its training journey. Thanks to the agency’s patronage, today marks the beginning of a journey through the narrative of visual images in a scientific context with the goal of bringing the public closer to the fascinating world of images from space, while teaching how to interpret and read them. The first step of this journey is the seminar held at the festival’s 2024 edition by Alessandro Coletta, an expert in satellite remote sensing. What do a climatologist, an engineer, a biologist, and a physicist have in common? The answer is simple: they all use data acquired by artificial satellites for their research – in short, images! Italy, in particular, has developed and launched into space a system of Earth observation satellites among the most advanced in the world: COSMO-SkyMed. It consists of a constellation of 6 radar satellites, managed by ASI in collaboration with the Ministry of Defence. COSMO-SkyMed is capable of acquiring images of our planet in any atmospheric situation and lighting condition. The acquired data provide a fundamental contribution to multiple themes, including emergency management, assessment of the effects of climate change, monitoring of agricultural crops, control of forest and woodland heritage, protection of cultural assets, and estimation of millimetric movements of the ground and infrastructure. With Alessandro Coletta, an expert in satellite remote sensing, we will dive into the narrative power of images from space. We will learn to interpret them, read them, and understand their value for science and our society.

ALESSANDRO COLETTA
An astrophysicist, he graduated in physics from the Infrared Astronomy Group of the University of Rome La Sapienza. He was the head of the Scientific Operational Center of Italy’s Beppo-Sax X-Ray Astronomy Satellite, one of the most successful astrophysical missions of the last 30 years. He is involved in science communication and is the author of the first popular science book on Gamma-Ray Bursts, The Second Big-Bang. Currently, he is co- authoring the volume Volcanoes from Space, focusing on the use of Italian satellites COSMO-SkyMed and PRISMA for the observation of Earth’s volcanoes.

IN COLLABORATION WITH