An International team of scientists, which includes Ricardo Génova Santos of the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canaries (IAC), has identified in the data from ESA’s Planck satellite a signal which represents half of the missing baryonic matter in the “Local Universe”, the set of galaxies close to the Milky Way. Using a variety of different observations, scientists had reached the conclusion that the normal (“baryonic”) matter formed in the early universe must make up 4% of the total matter in the universe, and the other 96% is composed of “ dark matter” (some 20%) and “ dark energy” (some

Phil Charles is Professor of Astronomy at the University of Southampton (United Kingdom) and has visiting professorships at the Universities of Oxford (United Kingdom) and Cape Town (South Africa). He was the Director of the South African Astronomical Observatory from 2004-11, during which time he was involved in the construction and commissioning of the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT). His research has always involved ground- and space-based observations of cosmic X-ray sources, mostly X-ray binaries, where a compact object (white dwarf, neutron star or black hole) accretes matter

We are very sorry to inform you that Professor Rod Davies has left us. He was a magnificent colleague and a very dear person in the IAC. Emeritus Professor of the University of Manchester (United Kingdom) he was the Director of the Jodrell Bank Radio Observatory of that University, and the scientist in charge of the British side of the “Tenerife Experiment” at the Teide Observatory.

Elizabeth Ferrara is the Deputy Lead Scientist for the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope’s Science Support Center. In addition to science, she provides help to scientists just starting to use Fermi data. She also provides science outreach for the mission, bringing the accomplishments, discoveries, and capabilities of the observatory to the greater scientific community. Finally, as professional faculty at the University of Maryland, she occasionally teaches data analysis methods to students

The operation and policies of the “Observatorios de Canarias”, which celebrated their 30th Anniversary this year, were discussed by its CCI (International Scientific Committee) during a meeting held in the La Laguna University yesterday, Tuesday November 17, in Tenerife. All of the signatory parties to the International Treaty “Agreement on Cooperation in Astrophysics” are members of this committee and through it have a say in the discussion and adoption of agreements affecting these Observatories. Apart from the regular business, a series of reports were presented on the operation and plans

Julien Malzac works at the Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie (IRAP) in Toulouse in the south of France, where he holds a Research Scientist position funded by the CNRS (Centre national de la recherche scientifique). He graduated in Physics at the Université de Bordeaux (France) and then obtained a PhD in Astrophysics from the Université de Toulouse. After that he worked for several years as a posdoc at the Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera in Milan (Italy) and then at the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge (United Kingdom)