An international team of researchers, including staff from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), has discovered a planetary nebula that destroyed its own planetary system, conserving the remaining fragments in the form of dust orbiting its central star. To date, more than 5000 exoplanets have been discovered orbiting stars of all kinds and almost every stage of stellar evolution. However, while exoplanets have been discovered around white dwarfs – the final stage in the evolution of low- and intermediate-mass stars like the Sun, no exoplanets have been detected in the previous
At the present time ground-based observatories have a wide range of instruments which can study the solar surface in the visible and infrared ranges. But it is not possible to combine these observations with those in the near ultraviolet, which cover the wavelength range from 200 to 400 nanometres, nor to maintain them for long periods due to the turbulence in the Earth’s atmosphere. In this context, the Sunrise III mission, in which the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) is collaborating, “ has become the first observatory to obtain spectropolarimetric data simultaneously in the
Next Friday, May 23, at 17:30, the Museum of Science and the Cosmos of Tenerife will host the popular science lecture "The James Webb Telescope: Highlights and Life Beyond Earth," delivered by the renowned British astronomer Martin Ward, Emeritus Temple Chevallier Professor of Astronomy at the University of Durham (UK) and Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society . This event, organised as part of the European ExGal-Twin Project , will offer the public a unique opportunity to learn about the most significant advances made by the James Webb Space Telescope, the largest and most powerful