This first “Galileo – Xu Guanqi meeting” will be held in Shanghai from Oct. 26^th to 30^th 2009, for celebrating the 400^th anniversary of the use by Galileo Galilei of the telescope in order to study the structure of our Universe.

This celebration occurs within the UNITED NATIONS sponsored activities for the 2009 as Year of Astronomy. The meeting is particularly dedicated to recall the roots of the modern scientific research in China and review the recent progress in one of the most advanced fields of scientific research: the one of relativistic astrophysics. We will review current progress in general relativity made possible by astronomical observations of the Sun, of the Stars and of the Universe. These results have been achieved on the ground of the theoires of Albert Einstein and thanks to unprecedented numbers of observational techniques: in X-ray, Gamma-ray, optical wave-lengths from space based observatories, in radio telescopes wavelengths from telescopes on the ground as well as in particle physics from underground observatories.

The name of Xu Guangqi (Xu Guangqi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia), the collaborator of Matteo Ricci (Ri Ma Dou) (Matteo Ricci - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia), celebrates his most extraordinary activities in bringing to China the works of Euclid and Galileo and his strong commitment to the process of modernization and scientific development of China . We are looking for an international meeting of approximate 274 participants, 137 from Asia and 137 from the rest of the Planet. The meeting is organized by  an  international organizing committee , an  international scientific advisory committee and a local organizing committee.

The “Galileo – Xu Guanqi Meetings” will be called in future years in order to foster the scientific cooperation of China and the international scientists in the field of Relativistic Astrophysics.