An international team of astronomers, including researchers from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), the University of Liège and collaborators in UK, Chile, the USA, and Europe, has discovered a transiting giant planet orbiting the smallest known star to host such a companion — a finding that defies current theories of planet formation. The host star, TOI-6894 , is a red dwarf with only 20% the mass of the Sun , typical of the most common stars in our galaxy. Until now, such low-mass stars were not thought capable of forming or retaining giant planets. But as published today in

The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) is once again participating in the Miniferias de la Ciencia y la Innovación en Canarias, reinforcing its commitment to popularising science and bringing astronomy closer to the Canarian public. Through its Scientific Communication and Culture Unit (UC3), the research centre is taking part in the activities organised in La Palma from 22 to 24 May. Become astro-detectives for a day Astrophysicists and popularisers Alfred Rosenberg and Alejandra Goded lead the activity ‘Astro-detectives: How do astrophysicists study the Universe?’, an interactive

The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) has successfully completed the integration of the scientific detector into the FRIDA (inFRared Imager and Dissector for Adaptive Optics) instrument, an integra-field camera and spectrograph designed to work with the adaptive optics system of the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC or Grantecan), the world's largest optical and infrared telescope, located at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory in La Palma. The integration was carried out in the laboratories of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in Mexico City by a team from the IAC