Newly formed stars have protoplanetary discs around them. A fraction of the material in the disc condenses into planet-forming chunks, and the rest finally falls into the star. Because of their common origin, researchers have assumed that the composition of these chunks and that of the rocky planets with low masses should be similar to that of their host stars. However, until now the Solar System was the only available reference for the astronomers.

The international collaboration Whole Earth Blazar Telescope (WEBT), in which researchers from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) participate, has discovered rapid and quasi-periodic variations in the observed brightness of the blazar BL Lacertae, located about a billion light-years away. These changes were observed during a strong outburst in 2020 and their origin is associated with a jet of high-energy particles. The study has used data from space satellites combined with observations from ground-based infrastructures, including the Teide Observatory (OT) and the Roque de los

An international research team led by researchers at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) has found a new method for measuring the masses of black holes based on the temperature of the gas which surrounds them when they are active. The results of the work have recently been published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS). The confirmation of the existence of black holes is one of the most basic results in astrophysics. There is a wide range of masses of black holes, from stellar-mass black holes, which are the result of the catastrophic final