A three-day conference of Italian and Ukrainian astronomers got underway in the northeast Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Tuesday, the foreign ministry said in a statement.
The 'Multiband astronomy from radium to gamma rays' meeting is being jointly organised by Karazin University, Italy's embassy in Ukraine, the National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF), the Institute of Radioastronomy of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences and the Ukrainian Astronomy Association, the statement said.
"The aim of this initiative celebrating the first Day of Italian Research in the World in Ukraine, is to encourage cooperation between the scientific communities of the two countries, stimulating joint progress in the fields of astrophysics, cosmology, radio astronomy and related technology," Italy's ambassador to Ukraine Davide La Cecilia said in opening remarks to the conference.
An distinguished delegation of Italian scientists is attending the conference including Professor Massimo Capaccioli - one of the most influential scientists and astronomers in the field of galaxies - and the Scientific Director of INAF, Filippo Zerbi, together with a group of astronomers from the main national observatories and from the Federico II University of Naples.
During the meeting, a major agreement will be formalised between INAF and the Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences following an earlier accord signed by INAF and Karazin University last year, the foreign ministry stated.
The closing session of the conference will take place on Thursday at the Radio Astronomy Observatory S.Y. Braude, home to the world's largest decametric radio telescope, the foreign ministry statement said.
