The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) is one of the international researches centres which is following actively the asteroid 2024 YR4 which has been qualified by the United Nations (UN) as potentially dangerous, because it has a 1.5% probability of impacting the Earth during 2032.The asteroid was discovered in 2024 and has an estimated size of between 40 and 90 metres. Given these figures, the UN has activated the protocols of planetary defence to obtain more accurate estimates of the orbit, the size and the threat which might be presented by 2024 YR4. The protocols of the UN are

The European Patent Office (EPO) has granted the IAC a patent on an invention developed within IACTEC-Space . This technology improves the quality of images obtained by high-performance cameras under the demanding conditions found in space. The effectiveness of this technology has already been tested on three space missions, applying it to the DRAGO (Demonstrator for Remote Analysis of Ground Observations) cameras, developed at the IAC for Earth observation from space. Carlos Colodro, electronics engineer at IACTEC-Space and the main person responsible for this development, comments that

The third telescope of the Two-metre Twin Telescope (TTT3) situated in the Teide Observatory of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) has seen its “first light”. This robotic 2 meter telescope, managed by the Canary company Light Bridges, is one of the largest of its kind in the world.