El Observatorio del Teide, del Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), recibió este domingo la visitas de las recién nombradas doctoras Honoris Causa de la Universidad de La Laguna (ULL), quienes pudieron conocer de primera mano cómo se trabaja en uno de los observatorios astrofísicos más importantes del mundo. La escritora Ken Bugul, la teórica de la comunicación Amparo Moreno Sardà y la historiadora de la ciencia Londa Schiebinger estuvieron acompañadas por altos cargos de la comunidad universitaria y fueron recibidas por el administrador del Observatorio del Teide, David López Nespral

ESA’s Hera mission for planetary defense performed a flyby of Mars, as part of its gravitational assistance manoeuvre to shorten its journey to the binary asteroid system Didymos. During the flyby, the spacecraft came around 5000 km from the surface of Mars, having also the opportunity to obtain images of its two moons, Deimos (during the approach) and Phobos (when departing Mars). Julia de León, Javier Licandro, and George Prodan, researchers at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, participate in this mission, successfully launched from Cape Cañaveral, Florida (USA) on October 7, 2024

A study published today in Nature Astronomy , in which a researcher from the IAC has participated, outlines the discovery of an extremely rare type of binary system composed of two high mass white dwarfs. The two stars are so close together that they will eventually collide resulting in a supernova explosion which, due to its proximity to the Earth, will appear ten times brighter than the Moon. Type 1a supernovae are a class of cosmic explosion often used as "standard candles" to measure the expansion of the Universe. They occur when a white dwarf exceeds the Chandrasekhar mass - the limit