A major fraction of the energy emitted within the universe is in the infrared, but we cannot detect it except using instruments specially developed to do this. The IAC has been aware of this since its beginning, and has been developing infrared instruments for ground based and space telescopes for over four decades, with the aim of going beyond previous frontiers of knowledge.

The fourth issue of Paralajes magazine takes an intensive journey through the many research studies carried out in the IAC using this type of radiation, and the technology developed here for observatories throughout the world, and even for space missions such as SOHO or the James Webb Space Telescope. There is a special section devoted to the astrophysicist Carlos Sanchez Magro, a pioneer in research and instrumentation in the infrared, who could not see the legacy of his work because he died prematurely, and who is remembered because his name was given to one of the first of the iAC's telescopes at the Teide Observatory.