It’s a matter of pulsars. This type of star with its swirling and elusive magnetism is the “hunting ground” where many astronomers from the Astronomical Observatory of Cagliari specialize.
Among them, the very young Matteo Bachetti, born in 1981, has recently stood out for participating in an important study just published on the slowest pulsar discovered so far.
(you can find the article at the following link)
The echoes of this news hadn’t even faded when, for the same researcher, a recognition of enormous prestige arrived.
Matteo received, without any prior notice, a letter directly from the United States. It was from NASA.
So far, nothing unusual, as Matteo has been used to collaborating with American colleagues for years, but this time the news was really serious: he was awarded a medal for achieving excellent scientific results within a NASA project (Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal).
At first, although probably thinking in his heart that he deserved this recognition, Matteo thought it was a prank by some mischievous colleague and remained silent and cautious. However, the checks didn’t take long: the letter was genuine and, moreover, it invited him to the official ceremony on October 13th in Pasadena, California, at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The medal aims to reward the great work Matteo Bachetti has done in developing the NASA NuSTAR satellite but especially his great intuition in the 2014 discovery of another very important star, the brightest pulsar ever discovered so far.
Results like this can only encourage the trust and support of institutions in Italian research.
You can find more details in the Media Inaf article: