Dr Antonia Varela Pérez, a researcher at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), has been included in the prestigious list ‘ Forbes Women: The 30 Most Influential Women in the Canary Islands 2026’, a distinction that highlights her scientific career and her work in protecting the night sky and disseminating knowledge. Antonia Varela, who in addition to her research work at the IAC directs the Starlight Foundation and the Museum of Science and the Cosmos in Tenerife, stands out in this ranking for her leadership in the field of sustainable development and astro-tourism, establishing

The international consortium Sloan Digital Sky Survey-V (SDSS-V) has appointed Dr Sebastián Francisco Sánchez, researcher at the Institute of Astronomy of the National Autonomous University of Mexico and senior scientist on leave from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), as director of the Local Volume Mapper (LVM) project, one of the three surveys that make up the SDSS-V. This appointment recognises Dr Sánchez's academic excellence and consolidates the collaboration with the IAC, with which the researcher has maintained a close scientific relationship for many years. Dr Sánchez

Eva Villaver, Deputy Director of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), has been appointed by the European Space Agency (ESA) to the Space Science Advisory Committee (SSAC), the highest advisory body to ESA's Director of Science on all matters related to the organization's mandatory science program. This role complements Dr. Villaver's duties as Deputy Director of the IAC. The SSAC carries out a strategic oversight role, sitting above the specialized working groups in areas such as astronomy or solar system exploration. Furthermore, it is responsible for issuing recommendations on

Researchers from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), in collaboration with the Instituto de Ciencias del Cosmos de la Universidad de Barcelona (ICCUB) and the Instituto de Estudios Espaciales de Cataluña (IEEC), have carried out the largest observational study to date on massive runaway stars including rotation and binarity in the Milky Way. This work, recently published in Astronomy & Astrophysics , sheds light on how these stellar “fugitives” are launched into space and what their properties reveal about their intriguing origins. Runaway stars are stars that travel through

This January, the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias hosted, for the fourth time, the MIT Astronomy Field Camp, the historic science camp that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), considered one of the best and most influential universities in the world, offers its planetary science and astronomy students with the aim of providing them with real experience of working in a professional observatory. On this occasion, nine students spent three weeks at the Teide Observatory in Tenerife, where they carried out various astronomical observations. This activity, coordinated by MIT