News

This section includes scientific and technological news from the IAC and its Observatories, as well as press releases on scientific and technological results, astronomical events, educational projects, outreach activities and institutional events.

List view
  • Cover of the inaugural conference "Impulsando la Astrofísica en España: 50 años de thesis doctorales en el IAC" (Promoting Astrophysics in Spain: 50 years of doctoral theses at the IAC)
    Press release
    50 years “Dreaming about the stars”
    The Founding Director of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) Francisco Sánchez, will give the inaugural lecture of the conference “Giving an impulse to Spanish Astrophysics: 50 years of doctoral theses in the IAC” this Wednesday at the Teatro Leal in La Laguna, in a public ceremony. He will talk about the birth and the consolidation of this branch of science in Spain, which is the subject of his recent book.
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  • From left to right: Aleix Roig, Ignacio Trujillo y Raúl Infante-Sáinz. Credit: Alejandra Rueda Moral (IAC).
    Press release
    IAU Symposium: Professional and Amateur astronomers, united in the same cause
    During the past week over a hundred specialists from all over the world have been meeting in La Laguna to discuss the study, in different areas of astrophysics, of the faintest and most diffuse objects in the sky. But no only professional astronomers have attended the meeting, organized by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) under the auspices of the International Astronomical Union (IAU). The participation of amateur astronomers is of importance for improving our knowledge of these “ghostly” structures.
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  • Round table of the summer school "Acercate al Cosmos"
    Press release
    Ending of the course for teachers “Get close to the Cosmos”
    For the fourth successive year the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias and the National Institute for Educational Technology and Teacher Training (INTEF), in collaboration with the International Menéndez Pelayo University (UIMP) has given teachers of secondary and pre-university education the opportunity to get to know the latest discoveries in astrophysics in a course given by professionals, thereby acquiring the tools for using them afterwards in the classroom.
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  • Fernando Moreno Insertis
    Press release
    A study of the whole Sun
    The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded one of its prestigious “ERC Synergy Grants” to a team led by Fernando Moreno Insertis, researcher at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and Professor at the University of La Laguna (ULL) as a member of a consortium of five European institutions.
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  • Hα+[N II] imaging of the super-remnant in M31N 2008-12a taken with the Liverpool Telescope (left), and the Hubble Space Telescope and WFC3 (right).
    Research news
    A giant interstellar bubble being grown in the Andromeda galaxy
    The combination of a white dwarf mass close to the Chandrasekhar limit (1.4 solar masses) and a fast hydrogen accretion rate (10 -7 solar masses per year) from a companion star leads to frequent thermonuclear runaways in the accumulated envelope of gas on the white dwarf. These are known as nova eruptions and have recurrence times of years to decades. In this work we report that the recurrent nova with the shortest recurrence timescale known (approximately once a year), M31N 2008-12a in the Andromeda galaxy, is surrounded by a giant shell with a projected size of about 134 by 90 pc that is
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