The Solar System research group at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) is participating in the international programme to keep a closet track of asteroid 2024 YR4. The aim is to determine its orbit with the highest possible precision before it stops being observable by ground based and satellite telescopes in April, and so improving our value of the probability that it will impact the Earth in 2032. In this context several telescopes of the Canary Observatories of the IAC are playing an outstanding role in this observing campaign: The Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) at the Roque de

An international team of researchers, including researchers from the IAC, have studied in detail a remarkable couple of dwarf galaxies “dancing with each other” inside an unpopulated area of the Universe. This uncommon pair of low-mass galaxies merging “in the middle of nowhere”, near the center of a cosmic void, offers a unique view of one-on-one interactions and of the evolution of galaxies located in very low density environments. Researchers from the Calar Alto Void Integral-field Treasury surveY (CAVITY) project, led by the University of Granada, have discovered a rare and ongoing

One of the biggest recent surprises in astronomy is the discovery that most stars like the Sun harbor a planet between the size of Earth and Neptune within the orbit of Mercury — sizes and orbits absent from our solar system. These ‘ super-Earths' and ` sub-Neptunes’ are the galaxy's most common planets, but their formation has been shrouded in mystery. Now, an international team of astronomers has found a crucial missing link. By weighing four newborn planets in the V1298 Tau system, they've captured a rare snapshot of worlds in the process of transforming into the galaxy's most common