The IACTEC headquarters has recently hosted the meeting between the engineering team behind the future European Solar Telescope and an international panel composed of some of the world's leading experts in the development of large telescopes and solar observation instrumentation. It is common for major scientific projects to undergo this type of scrutiny during their development as a way to independently verify their quality and viability. The evaluation process began over a month ago with the submission of all the design documentation to the reviewers. In this case, the evaluation focused

The Museo de la Ciencia y el Cosmos, part of the Organismo Autónomo de Museos y Centros del Cabildo de Tenerife, will host a conference by the astrophysicist and 2006 Nobel Laureate in Physics, John Mather, entitled ‘Unsolved mysteries of physics and astronomy’, on Friday 9th May. Mather receives this week the recognition as Doctor Honoris Causa of the Universidad de La Laguna (ULL) with the sponsorship of the researcher of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and Doctor Honoris Causa of the ULL, John Beckman. Mather's lecture, which will be in English, will be presented by the

On Wednesday 30 October, the headquarters of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) received a talk by the first Swiss astronaut, Claude Nicollier, who wanted to share his experience in space with the personnel of the IAC. Claude Nicollier is the first Swiss astronaut to have flown into space. After his studies at the Universities of Geneva and Lausanne, Claude joined ESA as a member of their first group of astronauts. Since 2007 Nicollier has been a Professor at the Federal Polytechnical School at Lausanne. He has spent more than 1000 hours in space (more than 42 days) including a