Not just cosmic phenomena: alongside the Einstein Telescope, the largest gravitational wave detector that Italy is applying to host in Sardinia, the same SOS Enattos site could be ideal for hosting another large project called the Earth Telescope .
Its objective is to study the heart of the Earth, as mysterious as the origin of the universe: the plan could arise from a synergy between the same public research bodies involved in the Einstein Telescope. The idea was presented today in Rome, at the conference organized by the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (Ingv).
"It is essential to study the origin of the universe, but it is equally important to study how the Earth works," said the president of INGV, Carlo Doglioni, on the sidelines of the conference. «We don't pay enough attention to the center of the Earth. For example, we don't know why plates move and without this basic knowledge we won't be able to predict earthquakes. For this reason", he noted, "the idea of a large project involving research bodies and Italian universities was born, to ensure that the Earth becomes an important object of study again".
The objective is therefore to build antennas capable of reconstructing the internal geometry of the planet and seeing its dynamics, Doglioni said, referring to seismic, geodetic, gravitational, magnetic and chemical antennas. In the SOS Enattos project, INGV already plays a leading role in studying the seismic engine in the area destined to host the Einstein Telescope. The instruments used for this purpose could therefore become the first nucleus of a network of sensors made available by all the research institutions involved in the project. Thus a sort of research hub for both astrophysics and geology would be born in Sos Enattos.
(Unioneonline)