We reproduce the statement issued by Robert Kirshner, Executive Director of the TMT International Observatory (TIO), regarding the decision by TIO partners not to accept the funding proposal put forward by Spain for the TMT site at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory. Statement from TMT International Observatory on Spain’s Financing Proposal “Following TIO's September 18 letter to Minister Morant, we want to share more about our decision. TIO’s partners gave Spain’s financing proposal extensive and careful consideration, and ultimately were not able to accept the proposal. Therefore, TIO

A new study published in Astronomy & Astrophysics unveils a powerful way to determine the size of dark matter haloes—the massive, invisible structures that host galaxies—by simply measuring how large galaxies appear in deep astronomical images. Researchers Ignacio Trujillo and Claudio Dalla Vecchia, from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and the Universidad de La Laguna (ULL), demonstrate that galaxy size can serve as a precise proxy for halo size, offering measurements up to six times more accurate than previous methods. Using the cutting-edge EAGLE cosmological simulations

On 18 September 2026, the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (MICIU) received a communication from the Executive Director of the TMT International Observatory (TIO) stating that its partners had been unable to reach the consensus required to accept the financial offer presented by the Ministry on 29 July to begin construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (ORM) on the island of La Palma. The proposal envisaged financing of up to €1 billion: a contribution from the Centre for the