An international study, carried out by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in which the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) has participated, shows that the universe could produce extremely luminous galaxies at very early epochs, when it was only some 3% of its present age. This result implies that these galaxies formed stars before, and more quickly than predicted by current theoretical models. The study also reveals an unusual galaxy that “imitates” the emission from a very distant galaxy. The results are published in the journal Nature. During the first months of scientific
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
The Euclid mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) will be launched into space tomorrow, 1st July to make the largest and most precise 3D map of the Universe. Spain has an important role in this project, where it is part of the the Consortium which has driven the mission since its origin. Spain has also participated significantly in the instrument design of the project, and will contribute to its scientific use. The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) has collaborated in the design, construction and testing of the control electronics for one of the on-board instruments. It also