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
  • An example of a nearby spiral galaxy, M81, where the bulge is easily identified as the central redder part, and the disc, dotted with zones where stars are currently forming and appear as blue regions forming spiral arms. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ESA/Harvard-Smithsonian CfA.
    Press release
    The origin of the first structures formed in galaxies like the Milky Way identified

    An international team of scientists led from the Centre for Astrobiology (CAB, CSIC-INTA), with participation from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), has used the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) to study a representative sample of galaxies, both disc and spheroidal, in a deep sky zone in the constellation of the Great Bear to characterize the properties of the stellar populations of galactic bulges. The researchers have been able to determine the mode of formation and development of these galactic structures. The results of this study were recently published in The Astrophysical

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  • View of the cluster if the contamination of stars and dust that hides it could be removed. Credit: Gabriel Pérez Díaz, SMM (IAC).
    Press release
    Astronomers discover a massive star cluster, of intermediate age, in the constellation Scutum

    An international team of astrophysicists led by the Stellar Astrophysics Group of the University of Alicante (UA), the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), and the University of Valparaíso (Chile) has discovered a massive cluster of stars of intermediate age in the direction of the Scutum constellation. This object, which has been named Valparaíso 1, lies some seven thousand light years away from the Sun, and contains at least fifteen thousand stars. To detect it, observations have been combined from ESA’s Gaia satellite, and various ground-based telescopes, including the Isaac Newton

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  • European Solar Telescope (EST). Credit: Gabriel Pérez Díaz, SMM (IAC)
    Press release
    The European Solar Telescope will be installed on La Palma

    The International Scientific Committee (CCI for its initials in Spanish) of the Canary Observatories has given the go-ahead for the siting of the installation of the European Solar Telescope (EST) at the Roque de Los Muchachos Observatory (Garafía, La Palma). The decision, taken at the first of the biannual meetings of the Committee, held virtually, implies the construction of the largest European infrastructure dedicated to solar observations, and the strengthening of the position of the Canaries as the place with the largest concentration of solar telescopes in the world.

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  • Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) on February 27th 2020
    Press release
    The natural brightness of the night sky

    A recent study analyses data collected at 44 of the darkest places in the world, including the Canary Island Observatories, to develop the first complete reference method to measure the natural brightness of the night sky using low-cost photometers. Of the 44 photometers in the survey, the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (Garafía, La Palma, Canary Islands) stands out at the darkest of all the skies analysed. The night sky is not completely dark; even in the remotest places there is a glow in the sky produced by natural components, both terrestrial and extraterrestrial, and by artificial

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  • Geminids on the Teide Observatory
    Press release
    Quadrantids 2021: our best wishes for the start of a new year

    This astronomical event will be broadcast live in the early hours of January 3rd from the Canary Observatories, via the sky-live.tv channel, with the collaboration of the European Project Interreg EELabs and the Innovation Service of the Cabildo of the Island of La Palma. After the impressive data of the activity of the 2020 Geminids (the last major meteor shower of the year) the expectations for the Quadrantids are very high, even though this time the Moon will make it hard to see the fainter meteors. Usually the Geminids and the Quadrantids show activity approaching 100 meteors per hour

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  • Composition of the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn , with the Moon. Credit: Daniel López and Alfred Rosenberg/IAC
    Photomontage
    The conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn: astronomical event of the year

    The astronomical event of the year took place on December 21st, a very close conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn which was broadcast on Internet in the channel of astronomical events Sky Live TV and the Cultural Section of Astronomy Cassiopeia of the University of La Laguno on the 20th and 21st from the Teide Observatory. Images and videos of the conjunction were taken, and they are detailed in this press release.

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