Cesare Grava

🇮🇹 astronomer working in 🇺🇸 I study migration of volatiles in Solar System airless bodies. Outdoor enthusiast, cinephile, dad

[MEDIA INAF @mediainaf]

Pubblicati oggi su Science i risultati dell’analisi dei dati inviati dalla sonda #Lucy della Nasa dopo il flyby dell’asteroide #Donaldjohanson, avvenuto il 20 aprile 2025. Ne parliamo con il primo autore, Simone Marchi dell’@SwRI.

https://t.co/dKVvDwpjQg

[Cesare Grava @cesaregrava]

@ExoCytherean @piero_dincecco Kinda like Io, right? 😉

[Cesare Grava @cesaregrava]

BTW, SwRI contributes two flight instruments (ACI 1 & 2) and manages the spacecraft subcontract and part of the mission

[Cesare Grava @cesaregrava]

super excited for the upcoming launch of NASA's mission #TRACERS - after yesterday's scrubbed attempt. And they even have instructions to build your own #LEGO model of the spacecraft! https://t.co/3Hm3mfIFrL

[Cesare Grava @cesaregrava]

@Bitoun @dObernai @theepicmap thank you

[Cesare Grava @cesaregrava]

@statsglobe @theepicmap Truth or Consequences, New Mexico

[Sarah A. Young Bear-Brown @SarahYoungBear1]

They are human beings! Stop treating them like animals. We shouldn’t call them immigrants. They are people too. They have names.

[Jasmine 🌌🔭 @astro_jaz]

the aurora borealis explained in a gif:

[Cesare Grava @cesaregrava]

@NightSkyPark @OdysseyBooksNY @IBJIYONGI You are in good company!

[Cesare Grava @cesaregrava]

On Mars, dust avalanches triggered by major marsquakes https://t.co/WWcI4oV4Qk

[Cesare Grava @cesaregrava]

@astro_jaz @UTSA @UTSA_PhyAst @SwRI OMG congratulations!!! Looking forward to meeting you in person!

[Cesare Grava @cesaregrava]

https://t.co/dzKGooK03H

[Cesare Grava @cesaregrava]

40 days until the total solar eclipse! 2024-04-08
Photo credits: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani

[Fermat's Library @fermatslibrary]

Since Jupiter is 5x farther from the Sun than Earth, the Sun is approximately a point source of light. As a result, Jupiter's moon Io casts a sharp shadow on Jupiter, while the Moon's shadow on Earth is softer and has a significant penumbra.

[Cesare Grava @cesaregrava]

@astro_jaz LOL! Without contact lenses, I thought it was Callisto's surface!

[Cesare Grava @cesaregrava]

As an Italian living in the US, I'm happy to celebrate
#IndigenousPeoplesDay today. There are better persons we can choose to celebrate US-Italy friendship than #Columbus

[Cesare Grava @cesaregrava]

Looking forward to the #DPS2023 that starts today! Here's a picture of me at last year's DPS 🙂

[American Astronomical Society (AAS) @AAS_Office]

Thank you to everyone who joined us for the 54th @DPSMeeting in London, Canada!🍁Whether in person or online — it was a GREAT week of planetary science & we couldn't have done it w/o you. See you in San Antonio for #DPS2023 & don't forget to fill out the meeting survey. #DPS2022

[The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor]

12 Reasons Why Cities Need More Trees:

1. Temperature Control

One large tree is equivalent to 10 air conditioning units, and the shade they provide can reduce street temperature by more than 30%.

2. Noise Reduction

Trees can reduce loudness by up to 50%. In urban areas filled with the sound of cars, construction, sirens, aeroplanes, and music, trees are essentially the best way to block noise and keep cities — along with the homes and workplaces in them — quieter.

3. Air Purity

Trees remove an astonishing amount of harmful pollutants and toxins from the air. In urban areas air quality is often disastrously bad — with severe consequences for our health. Trees make the air we breathe much cleaner.

4. Oxygen

And, while absorbing all those pollutants, trees also put more oxygen back into the urban environment. Oxygen levels are significantly lower in cities compared to the countryside; trees help to solve that problem.

5. Water Management

Trees do more than just shelter us and our buildings from rain — which is, in fact, extremely important. They also absorb huge quantities of water, reduce run-off, neutralise the severity of flooding, and make flooding more unlikely altogether. Not to forget that their roots absorb pollutants and prevent them from feeding back into a city's water supply.

6. Psychological Health

Studies have proven what we instinctively know to be true: that human beings are significantly happier when surrounded by nature rather than sterile urban environments. Our emotions, behaviour, and thoughts are shaped by the places we spend time — and trees have a profoundly positive effect on our psychology. The consequential benefits of being happier and more peaceful — as individuals and as a society — are immense.

7. Physical Health

Beyond all the other ways in which trees improve air quality and the urban environment, much to the benefit of our health, they also encourage people to go outside. Cycling, running, and walking are all more common in urban areas with plenty of trees. A knock-on effect of people spending more time outdoors is also social integration and stronger communities.

8. Privacy

A simple point, but not inconsequential, is that trees provide privacy.

9. Economics

The total economic benefit of urban trees is hard to calculate. There are costs, of course, including the repair of infrastructure damaged by roots and maintaining the trees themselves. But the total economic benefit — a consequence of everything else in this list and more — far outweighs the expenditure. Trees make cities wealthier.

10. Wildlife

Trees are miniature cities all of their own, serving as a habitat for hundreds of different species, including birds and mammals and insects.

11. Light Pollution

Trees don't only block the light shining down, therefore keeping us and our cities cooler — they also disrupt light shining up, from street lighting, cars, houses, and billboards. Skies are clearer in cities with more trees.

12. Aesthetics

And, finally, trees are beautiful. They break up the potential monotony of urban environments — the sharp geometry, the greyscale roads and buildings, the endless rows of cars — with their trunks, boughs, canopies, and flowers.

Just think: the gold and red of falling leaves in autumn, the white and pink blossom of spring, the vast green canopies of summer, and the branches lined with hoar-frost in winter. Every single tree is a myriad of intricacy and texture, of colour and scent, of dappled light on the pavement, mottled bark, knotted roots, of clustered leaves and delicate petals and stern boughs.

Few streets would not be improved by the kaleidoscopic aesthetic delights of a tree, not to mention the many different species of tree, all over the world, whether willow, oak, lime, cherry, aspen, maple, birch, horse chestnut, dogwood, hornbeam, ash, sycamore... the list goes on.

There are some drawbacks to urban trees, most of them context-specific, and they are not — of course — universally appropriate. But it seems fair to say that many cities would benefit from at least a few more trees here and there.

[Cesare Grava @cesaregrava]

Texans! Please do your part and conserve energy! Raise the A/C🌡in your 🏡 to 80 F (yes, you'll survive) and avoid running dishwasher, washing machine, and dryer until 10 pm tonight. Any discomfort pales in comparison to outages in this #heatwave

[ERCOT @ERCOT_ISO]

ERCOT continues to appeal for conservation. ERCOT requests Texas residents & businesses to conserve energy between 3-10 p.m., today, if safe to do so, as there is a potential to enter emergency operations due to lower reserves. For energy-saving tips visit https://t.co/98n73fzA3y

[Cesare Grava @cesaregrava]

Congratulations to #India 🇮🇳 on becoming the fourth country to successfully land a spacecraft on the #Moon 🌙! #Chandrayaan3 #SpaceExploration