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.

  •  Merging binary
    An international piece of research, led by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) has found clues to the nature of some of the brightest and hottest stars in our Universe, called blue supergiants. Although these stars are commonly observed, their origin has been an old puzzle that has been debated for several decades. By simulating novel stellar models and analysing a large data sample in the Large Magellanic Cloud, IAC researchers have found strong evidence that most blue supergiants may have formed from the merger of two stars bound in a binary system. The study is published in the
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  •  Asteroid near Mars
    Using observations made with the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) a study led from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) has confirmed that the asteroid 2023 FW14, discovered last year, is accompanying the red planet in its journey around the Sun, ahead of Mars and in the same orbit. With this new member, the group of Trojans which accompany Mars has increased in number to 17. But it shows differences in its orbit and chemical composition which may indicate that it is a captured asteroid, of a primitive type. The results are published in
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  • Ana Escorza receiving the La Caixa Foundation grant
    One male and one female researcher received the Junior Leader postdoctoral fellowship and three others received INPhINIT Incoming PhD fellowships. The aim is to retain and attract talent to promote research excellence in Spain and Portugal. The Scholarship Programme of the "la Caixa" Foundation held the financial aid award ceremony yesterday, Tuesday 12 March, which will benefit research staff at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC). This programme of INPhINIT Incoming PhD and Junior Leader postdoctoral fellowships will reach a total of 105 people from more than 60 research centres
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  • NEOMIR
    The mission is part of the planetary defence strategy of the European Space Agency (ESA) The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) is hosting this week the meeting of the Scientific Advisory Group (SAG) linked to ESA's NEOMIR (NearEarth Object Mission in the InfraRed) mission, which aims, among other things, to create a system for detecting near-Earth asteroids using a space telescope. The mission is part of the planetary defence strategy of the European Space Agency (ESA), which has set a possible launch date of 2030, using an Ariene 6-2 rocket. SAG coordinator and IAC researcher
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  •  CARMENES 2024 Scientific Meeting
    The 19th scientific meeting of CARMENES, a collaboration of more than 100 scientists from 11 Spanish and German institutions aimed at studying extrasolar planets around M-type dwarf stars, the lowest mass stars, was held this week at the IACTEC facilities in La Laguna (Tenerife, Spain). Since it became operational in 2016, CARMENES has analysed more than 360 such stars, leading to the discovery of more than 65 new planets, making it the most efficient instrument and mapper in the study of planets around very low-mass stars, with 30 % of the total number of planets discovered in this range
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  • ALISIO-1 image of La Palma and El Hierro
    The first satellite developed by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias,, which was launched into space last December, has sent back its first images. The quality of the observations shows the perfect performance of its DRAGO-2 infrared camera. The pointing test of its laser optical communications module has also been successfully carried out, making it the first Spanish satellite to use this technology. Today, at a press conference, the first images obtained with the ALISIO-1 satellite (Advanced Land-Imaging Satellite for Infrared Observations), an Earth observation satellite whose
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