It is a technological jewel, constantly updated and essential for revealing the mysteries of space and allowing science to make important steps forward. The Sardinia Radio Telescope is a single-dish radio telescope, located in Pranu Sanguni, nine kilometres from the village of San Basilio and 40 km from Cagliari. The site, managed by the Cagliari Astronomical Observatory on behalf of the Italian Institute of Astrophysics, was inaugurated in 2013 and emerged as a research tool also available to the Italian Space Agency. Among the celestial objects that it is able to observe, there are galaxies, black holes, planetary nebulae, neutron stars and pulsars. You can admire a dish with a 64-metre diameter, composed of over a thousand aluminium panels that can move independently, thus allowing the antenna to adapt to the different focal positions of the receivers.

Not only physical elements: the telescope is also involved in the search for signals defined as non-natural, or coming from extraterrestrial sources. The Sardinia Radio Telescope is, in fact, involved in the SETI – Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence - project, through the Breakthrough Listen programme, along with other telescopes from around the world. Furthermore, through the Italian Space Agency, the San Basilio telescope also collaborates with NASA and will be able to provide its contribution to guaranteeing communications during the next missions to the Moon and Mars, as well as tracking satellites and monitoring space debris.

Today, the Sardinia Radio Telescope is the most powerful Italian radio telescope and one of the largest in Europe, as well as one of the most technologically advanced telescopes in the world. This is also thanks to its new ‘glasses’: in 2023, Mistral, a receiver with 415 detectors that operate simultaneously, was installed, allowing us to observe celestial phenomena such as galaxy clusters and gas filaments between clusters, consequently deepening our knowledge of the dark matter of the universe.

During a visit, which you can book through the Cagliari Astronomical Observatory website, researchers, technicians and communicators at the observatory will tell you about all the interesting facts and various aspects of the research project, before taking you for a walk to see the radio telescope up close, located at an altitude of 700 metres, and observe the sky, trying to imagine new and exciting astronomical discoveries.