CHEOPS, the new exoplanet mission of the European Space Agency (ESA), in which the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) is participating, has observed a nearby planetary system which contains one of the hottest and most extreme extrasolar planets known until now: WASP-189 b. The result, the first from this mission, is being published in Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Nature magazine is publishing today a surprising study about the giant, ultra-hot planet WASP-76b in which researchers from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) have taken part. This exoplanet, 390 light years away towards the constellation Pisces, has days when its surface temperatures exceed 2,400 Celsius, sufficiently hot to evaporate metals. Its nights, with strong winds, cool down the iron vapour so that it condenses into drops of iron. This is the first result with the high resolution spectrograph ESPRESSO, an instrument co-directed by the IAC and installed on teh Very Large

Elena Máñez Rodríguez, the Head of the Department of Economy, Knowledge and Employment of the Canary Government paid a visit this morning to the headquarters of the IAC in La Laguna, together with Carlos Andrés Navarro Martínez, the Director of the Canary Agency of Research, Innovation and the Information Society (ACIISI).