Chethma De Mel, Jadetimes Staff
C. J. De Mel is a Jadetimes news reporter covering Entertainment News
The Institute of Science and Technology Austria, ISTA, proudly welcomes star researcher Assistant Professor Ilaria Caiazzo into their ranks. Astrophysicist Ilaria Caiazzo has discovered a star with two different faces-one hot and one cool-a star as massive as the Sun yet as small as the Moon, and dead stars that can engulf planets and disrupt orbits.
When Caiazzo started to work on her astrophysics project, there were philosophical open questions about the time and existence and beginning of the universe. Having started with philosophy, she explains that she was attracted to astronomy because "it is observational: astronomy is like detective work, we collect the evidence without touching the scene ".
She presently does her research on neutron stars and white dwarfs, remnants of massive stars bound with insights into the universe's evolution. Neutron stars are ultradense entities, and a spoon of matter from them would weigh more than Mount Everest. These objects allow scientists to test the limits of physical laws regarding general relativity to quantum mechanics in ways that cannot be replicated here on Earth.
White dwarfs are the remnants of stars similar in mass to the Sun but compacted into a size comparable to Earth. She has made several key discoveries about white dwarfs, most notably in 2023 when she discovered a "two-faced" white dwarf that has now been named Janus, with an apparent divide between hydrogen-rich and helium-rich faces.
Above her research, Caiazzo is fond of film production and scriptwriting, together with the scientific career. Recently, she has been conferred also the title of Knight of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.
By joining ISTA, Caiazzo would like to contribute with her colleagues to making the institute a focal point in Europe concerning astronomical research. "I'm excited to help build a vibrant astronomy program here," she says, looking forward to shaping the future of the field.
