Dra. Nanda Rea, of the ICE (IEEC-CSIC), awarded with the National Research Prize in the Young Talent category

2018-10-17 00:00:00

Nanda Rea (Rome, 1978) holds a degree in Physics and a PhD in Astrophysics from the University of Rome "Tor Vegata". She is a senior researcher at the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) at the Institute of Space Sciences (IEEC-CSIC).

Her research is focused on the neutron stars, residual nuclei of massive stars that have exploded.These stars, of which millions are in our galaxy, concentrate a mass exceeding the Sun in a diameter of about 20 km, have a fast rotation and a large magnetic field.

In particular, Rea is specialized in the study of magnetars, neutron stars surrounded by the most intense magnetic fields in the Universe. In this regard, she is responsible for the discovery that magnetars can have weak magnetic fields, which has revolutionized the classical conception of this type of stars.

To reach this finding, Nanda Rea and her team have worked for more than 10 years with data from various space observatories such as XMM-Newton and Integral (ESA) or Chandra X-Ray Observatory or the Swift Observatory (NASA).