Appearing on RTL Today Radio's Drive, Adriano spoke to host Tom Einarsson about the ideas behind How Do We Know? and Cosmic Myth Buster. Together, the columns will make astronomy and scientific thinking more accessible while encouraging readers to remain curious, critical, and comfortable with uncertainty.
For Adriano, that sense of curiosity begins beneath the night sky. Although he has long been drawn to astronomy, his journey into astrophotography started relatively recently, when he bought his first telescope seven years ago and pointed his camera at the Moon.
Since then, he has progressed through several telescopes, cameras, and other pieces of equipment, building a semi-professional setup capable of photographing distant galaxies and nebulae millions of light years away.
"I've always been drawn to look up and wonder. I love being out at night. I love the silence, the darkness, the connection with nature", he explained.
Photography also gives him a way to share that experience with others – and to explain the science behind the objects appearing in his images.
Through his company Nightwise, Adriano organises astrophotography workshops that teach participants how to capture the night sky with their own cameras. He also leads telescope observation nights, offering people a closer look at whatever may be visible, from planets and nebulae to distant galaxies.
His concern for the night sky extends beyond observation and photography. In his work for RTL Today, Adriano writes about astronomy, science, space technology, and environmental issues, with a particular focus on light pollution.
The excessive or poorly directed use of artificial lighting creates a glow that obscures the stars, he explained. The result is not only a problem for astronomers, but a gradual loss shared by society as a whole.
It is "denying us, but also the next generations, a source of inspiration that has been there for centuries", Adriano said.
His first new RTL Today column, How Do We Know?, grew from a recurring problem in science communication: readers are often presented with remarkable facts but given little space to explore the reasoning behind them.
Astronomy tells us, for example, that the Andromeda Galaxy is approximately 2.5 million light years away. But how could anyone establish such a distance when, as Adriano put it: "It's not like we can go out there with a tape measure, can we?!"
Each instalment will begin with a question, examine the available evidence, and show how scientists fit the pieces together, all in accessible language.
"For me, the reasoning is often as fascinating as the story itself", he said. "I don't want people just to remember facts. I want them to understand why we trust the answer we give."
That approach reflects a principle with relevance far beyond astronomy: even when something is presented as established fact, it remains worth asking how we know it. Anfuso offered a hint about the method astronomers use to measure cosmic distances – "parallax" – but left the full explanation for the first instalment of the column.
The second series, Cosmic Myth Buster, will confront the unreliable claims, misconceptions, and conspiracy theories that flourish online. Its subjects may range from relatively everyday beliefs such as horoscopes to flat-Earth claims and Moon-landing conspiracies.
The aim, however, is not ridicule. Adriano wants the column to distinguish between claims contradicted by evidence, innocent misunderstandings, and questions that science has not yet resolved.
"Science is not about claiming we know everything, [or that] we understand everything, because we don't", he underlined. "It's about testing ideas against evidence, building the best explanation we can and being prepared to revise it when new evidence comes along."
The tone will therefore be friendly rather than judgemental, equipping readers to assess claims for themselves. Adriano hopes they will become more sceptical and evidence-minded while remaining willing to say, when appropriate, that science simply does not yet know.
He also demonstrated that myth-busting need not be humourless. Asked about a flat Earth, Adriano temporarily set the scientific evidence aside and proposed a commercial test: if the world really had an edge, would companies not already be selling tours to see it?
Needless to say, the suggestion quickly sent the Drive studio into speculation about sightseeing businesses, billionaire bunkers, and novel solutions to rubbish disposal.
Behind the laughter lies the spirit connecting both columns: curiosity sharpened by critical thinking.
How Do We Know? and Cosmic Myth Buster will appear on RTL Today on Mondays, while the monthly Sky Guide will continue to come out on the first day of the month. Adriano's astrophotography and a list of his publications are available through his personal website.
Science writer and astrophotographer extraordinaire Adriano swung by the studio to tell us about his new, informative columns coming to RTL Today.
