Every year, the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic awards a series of medals to researchers who have distinguished themselves in scientific progress; for the physical sciences, the award bears the name of Ernst Mach. For 2025, this honour was awarded to Enrico Costa, a researcher at the National Institute of Astrophysics (Inaf) in Rome and a leading figure in Italian astrophysical research.
Yesterday, 24 November 2025, at the headquarters of the Czech Academy of Sciences, the ceremony was held during which Costa received the “Ernst Mach” medal. ‘I am honoured by this, which I see as a recognition for the present collaboration and an encouragement for the future,’ Costa commented after the award ceremony. ‘Within the framework of the proposal for Esa for a new M8 class mission, we are reasoning about the important role that universities and industries in the Czech Republic can play, including on scientific instrumentation.’
The prize is the crowning achievement of a long and fruitful collaboration between Italian and Czech scientists in the field of X-ray polarimetry. Over the years, Costa - together with colleagues such as Ronaldo Bellazzini, a researcher at the National Institute of Nuclear Physics (Infn), and Paolo Soffitta, a researcher at Inaf in Rome - has made a decisive contribution to the development of the innovative technology that later gave rise to IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer), the mission carried out in collaboration between Asi and NASA that opened a new observational window on the extreme universe.
In addition to the instrumental aspect, Costa also played a central role in building the scientific network that prepared the international community to fully exploit Ixpe's capabilities. In particular, work with Giorgio Matt, a professor at the University of Roma Tre, led to the involvement of theoretical groups in Italy and Europe in the development of theoretical models needed to interpret the mission's data.
From left: Michal Bursa, Director of the Astronomical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (Asu); Enrico Costa, researcher at Inaf; Radomír Pánek, Director of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic; and Jiri Svoboda, Head of the High Energy Group at Asu
Crucial to this network is the long-standing collaboration with the Prague Relativistic Astrophysics Group, which has been working side by side with the Italian group for years. Michal Dovčiak, from the Astronomical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, coordinated the international team engaged in the study of galactic black holes observed with Ixpe, making a decisive contribution to the mission's scientific success.
https://www.media.inaf.it/2025/11/25/enrico-costa-medaglia-ernst-mach/