Last night, the 5,000 fibre-optic ‘eyes’ of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) reached a major milestone, having fully covered the area originally planned for its map of the universe. Thus, DESI’s five-year programme has concluded ahead of schedule and with far more data than expected, resulting in the largest high-resolution 3D map of the universe ever produced. This map will enable researchers to explore dark energy, which accounts for 70% of the universe and drives its accelerated expansion. By comparing how galaxies were distributed in the past with their current

An international team of scientists, including researchers from the Canary Islands Institute of Astrophysics (IAC), has confirmed the existence of three bodies orbiting the dynamic exoplanetary system TOI-201. They include a super-earth (TOI-201 d), a warm Jupiter (TOI-201 b) and a brown dwarf (TOI-201 c). The paper is published in Science Advances. “The goal was to characterize the TOI-201 planetary system to understand not just what planets are there, but how they interact with each other dynamically,” said Ismael Mireles, a PhD candidate in the UNM Department of Physics and Astronomy and

A team of scientists, including astrophysicist Carlos Hernández Monteagudo from the University of La Laguna (ULL) and the Canary Islands Institute of Astrophysics (IAC), has compiled one of the most comprehensive catalogues of small bodies in the Solar System, based on photometric observations made from Earth. The study, published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, compiles data on 6,579 asteroids, comets and irregular satellites, mainly from the main belt located between Mars and Jupiter, opening up new possibilities for studying their composition and rotation. The