A new international study, using observations from the Gran Telescopio Canarias at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma, has identified a plasma bubble as the source of the persistent emission observed in some of the so-called fast radio bursts (FRBs), one of the most powerful and unknown cosmic events in the Universe. The data also allow researchers to constrain the nature of the “engine” powering these mysterious sources. The results are published today in Nature. Discovered just over a decade ago, fast radio bursts (FRBs) emit millisecond-long pulses that release an immense

UNDARK is a pioneering project led by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) bringing together outstanding international institutions in the fields of astrophysics, cosmology, and particle physics. Funded for three years via the 'Widening' programme of the European Union, its objective is to tackle one of the major puzzles of contemporary physics: the dark universe. The major part of the Cosmos is composed by the so-called “dark universe”. Barely 18% of the total matter in the universe is made up of the elements in atoms with which we are familiar, while the remaining 82%, termed

On January 7, 2025, the European Commission established the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO) as a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC), furthering its mission to become the world’s largest and most powerful observatory for gamma-ray astronomy. The creation of the CTAO ERIC will enable the Observatory's construction to advance rapidly and provide a framework for distributing its data worldwide, significantly accelerating its progress toward scientific discovery. “The ERIC will streamline the construction and operation of the Observatory in a way that will undoubtedly