This site will be out of service for maintenance tomorrow, May 15 from 7:00 to 9:30 am

News

This section includes scientific and technological news from the IAC and its Observatories, as well as press releases on scientific and technological results, astronomical events, educational projects, outreach activities and institutional events.

List view
  • Heavy-element abundance pattern for a P-rich star (blue stars), together with the abundances of stars representative of the s- (CH; red), i- (CEMP-i; magenta), and r- (EMP-r; green) neutron capture processes. The P-rich stars heavy-element pattern is more similar to the CH stars or the s-process.
    Research news
    A new stellar site for the formation of very heavy elements
    The recently discovered phosphorus-rich stars pose a challenge to stellar evolution and nucleosynthesis (that is, the formation of chemical elements in stellar interiors) theory, as none of the existing models can explain their extremely peculiar chemical abundances pattern. Apart from the large phosphorus (P) enhancement, such stars also show enhancement in other light (O, Mg, Si, Al) and heavy (e.g., Ce) elements. Thanks to the Spanish Service Time at the Nordic Optical Telescope, we have recently obtained high-resolution optical spectra of two optically bright phosphorus-rich stars
    Advertised on
  • Artist's impression of a hot star plagued by a giant magnetic spot (Credit: ESO/L. Calçada, INAF-Padua/S. Zaggia).
    Research news
    A Plague of Magnetic Spots Among the Hot Stars of Globular Clusters
    For more than six decades, the quest to understand the formation of hot (about 20,000−30,000 K) extreme horizontal branch (EHB) stars in Galactic globular clusters has remained one of the most elusive in stellar evolutionary theory. Here we report on two discoveries that challenge the idea of the stable luminosity of EHB stars. The first mode of EHB variability is periodic and cannot be ascribed to either binary evolution or pulsation. Instead, we attribute it here to the presence of magnetic spots: superficial chemical inhomogeneities whose projected rotation induces the variability. The
    Advertised on
  • Proposed model to explain the color diversity observed on the surface of Bennu.
    Research news
    Colouring asteroid Bennu
    The main objective of the NASA OSIRIS-REx mission is the collection of material from the surface of primitive asteroid (101955) Bennu, and to bring it back to the Earth. To provide general context to the results obtained from the analysis of this sample it is fundamental to carry out an extensive study of the surface of the asteroid. To do that, the spacecraft is provided, among other instruments, with an optical camera (MapCam) equipped with 4 color filters b’, v, w, and x, centered at 473, 550, 698, and 847 nm, respectively. This set-up allowed to do color studies, i.e., to analyze how the
    Advertised on
  • Optical instrumentation. Credit: Inés Bonet (IAC).
    Press release
    The Spanish Goverment increases the budget of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias by 9 million euros
    In the document presenting the General National Budget for 2021 approved by the Council of Ministers for 2021, the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) will receive, next year, a sum of 9 million euros from the State Plan of Investments and Reforms. This extraordinary grant, which will be spent on investments and technological infrastructure, is in addition to the annual grant from the Ministry of Science and Innovation. The IAC is thereby recognized as a powerful motor attracting external funding to the Canaries to drive technological development and create employment.
    Advertised on
  • Dark matter in two galaxies simulated on a computer. The only difference between them is the nature of dark matter. Without collisions on the left and with collisions on the right. The work suggests that dark matter in real galaxies looks more like the image on the right, less clumpy and more diffuse than the one on the left. The circle marks the end of the galaxy. Credit: Image taken from the article Brinckmann et al. (2018, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 474, 746; https://doi.org/10.10
    Press release
    Solved: the mystery of how dark matter in galaxies is distributed
    The gravitational force in the Universe under which it has evolved from a state almost uniform at the Big Bang until now, when matter is concentrated in galaxies, stars and planets, is provided by what is termed ‘dark matter’. But in spite of the essential role that this extra material plays, we know almost nothing about its nature, behaviour and composition, which is one of the basic problems of modern physics. In a recent article in Astronomy & Astrophysics Letters, scientists at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC)/University of La Laguna (ULL) and of the National University of
    Advertised on
  • AU mic b light curves from TESS and Spitzer IRAC at 4.5 μm (purple filled circles). The transit model (orange curve) includes a photometric model that accounts for the stellar activity modelled with a Gaussian Process (GP), which is subtracted from the data before plotting. The frequent flares from the stellar surface are removed with an iterative sigma-clipping.
    Research news
    Discovery of a young forming planet around the nearby star AU Mic
    AU Microscopii (AU Mic) is the second closest pre-main-sequence star, at a distance of 9.79 parsecs and with an age of 22 million years . AU Mic possesses a relatively rare and spatially resolved edge-on debris disk extending from about 35 to 210 astronomical units from the star , and with clumps exhibiting non-Keplerian motion . Detection of newly formed planets around such a star is challenged by the presence of spots, plage, flares and other manifestations of magnetic ‘activity’ on the star . Here we report observations of a planet transiting AU Mic. The transiting planet, AU Mic b, has
    Advertised on