Virtual and Augmented Reality for increasing the awareness of current scientific research

Virtual reality (VR) devices allow the exploration of 3D data in a fully immersive fashion and make it possible to create a powerful engagement experience and a direct interaction with current scientific data to learn more about astronomy in Education and Public Outreach (E&PO) activities. In 2019 the INAF Osservatorio Astronomico di Palermo (INAF-OAPa) launched 3DMAP-VR (3-Dimensional Modeling of Astrophysical Phenomena in Virtual Reality; Orlando et al. 2019, RNAAS 3, ID.176), a project for visualizing 3D results of astrophysical (magneto)-hydrodynamic (MHD) simulations, through VR equipments. The models, uploaded on the Sketchfab portal (a platform widely used to publish and share 3D models and VR contents), received a very positive feedback from the scientific community and the general public.  Here we will show some of the scenes produced in the framework of 3DMAP-VR  to describe astrophysical phenomena. More specifically, we will focus our attention on MHD simulations describing the interaction of exoplanets (https://skfb.ly/6QYtC) with their host stars, and on artististic views of exoplanets which are based on information extracted from multi-wavelength observations, such as in the case of exoplanets 55 Cancri (https://skfb.ly/6R6Pt) and Wasp-76b (https://skfb.ly/6QZHF). Moreover, the 3DMAP-VR project team used augmented reality to produce informative videos to explore the characteristics of some of these models, published on media.inaf.it and edu.inaf.it. These E&PO products not only allowed the public to understand the astrophysical phenomena but they have stimulated great synergy between the outreach team and the astronomers, and between researchers and the public.