Statement supporting the selection of La Palma for the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) site: The Comité Científico Internacional (CCI) of the Canary Islands Observatories enthusiastically welcomes the possibility that the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) may ultimately choose the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos (ORM) on La Palma as its site. The ORM offers outstanding astronomical conditions, decades of successful international cooperation in operating telescopes, and a robust legal framework protecting its dark skies. At its meeting on 27 November 2025 on the island of La Palma, the CCI

Astronomers have used telescopes around the world, includingthe Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC or Grantecan) at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma, to study the asteroid 1998 KY26, revealing it to be almost three times smaller and spinning much faster than previously thought. The asteroid is the 2031 target for Japan’s Hayabusa2 extended mission. The new observations offer key information for the mission’s operations at the asteroid. “We found that the reality of the object is completely different from what it was previously described as,” says astronomer Toni Santana-Ros, a

The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and the Universidad de La Laguna (ULL) has confirmed the discovery of a super-Earth orbiting in the habitable zone of HD 20794, a nearby Sun-like star. This discovery, the result of over two decades of observations, opens a window to future studies of Earth-like planetary atmospheres. The search for planets in the habitable zone of Sun-like stars is crucial for understanding the possibility of life beyond Earth and for studying conditions similar to those that enabled the development of life on our own planet. In this context, HD 20794, a star