Clues to the first stars may be hiding much closer to home than expected. An international team led by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) has detected potential chemical traces of the very first stars in the Universe within a neighboring galaxy. The setting for this discovery is NGC 1277, a well-known "relic" galaxy. While normal galaxies grow and transform by merging with others throughout their history, this compact system formed most of its stars very quickly in the early Universe and became frozen in time. Acting as a cosmic time capsule, this galaxy is perfect for

Astronomers at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), using the 2-meter robotic Two-meter Twin Telescope (TTT) at the Teide Observatory, have obtained the deepest optical images ever taken of Malin 2, one of the largest and faintest spiral galaxies in the Universe. These ultra-deep observations have revealed previously unseen structures, including several diffuse stellar emissions and a striking, elongated spiral-like feature, hinting at past interactions with other galaxies. The team has also identified a potential ultra-diffuse dwarf galaxy (UDG) about 400,000 light-years from

A team of cosmologists from the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC) and the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands (IAC) has obtained the most accurate census to date of the dark matter halos of the Universe. The work is based on the development of a new model, called GPS+, capable of predicting how many dark matter halos exist at each stage of cosmic history. In the universe, there are enormous invisible structures surrounding galaxies and galaxy clusters. These are dark matter halos, concentrations of matter that do not emit light and cannot be directly observed, but