A study led by researcher Laura Scholz, of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) has found, for the first time, observational evidence that the evolution and the properties of the galaxies are conditioned not only by the mass of the stars they contain, but aso by the effect of the dark matter halos which surround them. The results are published in the specialist journal Nature Astronomy. Dark matter comprises around 85% of all the matter in the Universe. Although ordinary matter absorbs, reflects and emits light, dark matter cannot be seen directly, which makes its detection

An international scientific team, including the researchers from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) Cristina Ramos Almeida, Patricia Bessiere and Giovanna Speranza, has discovered that quasars, some of the brightest and most powerful objects in the Universe, are mainly ignited by mergers between galaxies. The finding sheds new light, after years of controversy, on what causes the emission of large amounts of energy in the most powerful active nuclei. The research has used observations from the Isaac Newton Telescope (INT) and the William Herschel Telescope (WHT) at the Roque de

The IAC researcher Susana Iglesias-Groth has discovered the existence of tryptophan, an amino acid essential for the formation of proteins and the develoment of living organisms, within a stellar system in the Perseus Cloud. She did this using data from the Spitzer Space Observatory. The results of this finding are published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Tryptophan is one of the 20 amino acids considered essential for the formation of proteins, which are key macromolecules for the development of life on Earth. This amino acid has many spectral features in