(Sept. 14) – How to survive in space for a long time? How to ensure the permanence of astronauts on future long missions, such as on the Moon or Mars, defending them from the aggression of ionizing and non-ionizing radiation effects? How to resist the DNA breakage and the bombing that hits human cells? It is the new frontier of space exploration, a challenge for worldwide science. On these topics, a few days ago, it has been signed an agreement between the Istituto di Fisica Moderna – IMP (Institute of Modern Physics), the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Department of Physics and Astronomy from the University of Florence. “The agreement enables collaboration on shared scientific projects on dosimetry (ie the discipline that measures radiation) and radiobiology but also in other fields, and allows a swap of young researchers, which is critical to develop this type of research in the two countries,” explained Emanuele Pace, researcher at the Department in Florence and delegate to sign the agreement. “In the next years, in fact, China will launch a space station with three astronauts.” “With this agreement, which is parallel to another one signed by China and Enea, the activities undertaken with the space missions Diaspace (with the Russians) and 3DISS (with the International Space Station) make another important step forward, for example in the study of dosimetry with synthetic diamonds, which measure the same amount of radiation absorbed by humans,” concluded Pace. (red)
