The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and the Universidad de La Laguna (ULL) has confirmed the discovery of a super-Earth orbiting in the habitable zone of HD 20794, a nearby Sun-like star. This discovery, the result of over two decades of observations, opens a window to future studies of Earth-like planetary atmospheres. The search for planets in the habitable zone of Sun-like stars is crucial for understanding the possibility of life beyond Earth and for studying conditions similar to those that enabled the development of life on our own planet. In this context, HD 20794, a star

The Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias hosted this week the global meeting of the members of the European project The Whole Sun , a project approved and funded by the European Research Council (ERC) as part of its Synergy Grant calls. The duration of the project is seven years (from 2019 to 2026) and its full title is: “The whole Sun: untangling the complex physical mechanisms behind our eruptive star and its twins”. The main objective of the ERC’s Synergy Grant calls is to promote the joint work of groups of researchers in different European institutions so that all the necessary tools

The existence of dark matter is likely one of the most perplexing problems facing the scientific community, and unraveling its nature has become one of the primary goals of modern physics. In simple terms, we do not know what dark matter is made of, despite accounting for 85% of all the matter in the Universe. A study led by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias concludes that dark matter does not behave as described by the dominant paradigm, which states that dark matter particles only interact with each other and with ordinary matter through gravity. The IAC study reveals that dark