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.

  • The M31 Galaxy, more commonly known as the Andromeda Galaxy, is a spiral galaxy situated some 2- 2.5 million light years from us in the direction of the constellation of Andromeda. Credits: Adam Evans/wikipedia.
    The discovery of metal-rich planetary nebulae in the outer regions of the Andromeda Galaxy, using data from the GTC, gives evidence of a possible encounter between galaxies
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  • Figure caption: Left : (FUV − NUV) versus (NUV − [3.6]) color-color diagram. Morphological types are represented by color (see legend). We define the blue and red sequence by dividing the plot into two regions and fitting a least-squares 1-D polynomial (a
    We obtained GALEX FUV, NUV, and Spitzer/IRAC 3.6 µm photometry for >2000 galaxies, available for 90% of the S4G sample. We find a very tight "GALEX Blue Sequence (GBS)" in the (FUV − NUV) versus (NUV − [3.6]) color-color diagram which is populated by irregular and spiral galaxies, and is mainly driven by changes in the formation timescale (τ ) and a degeneracy between τ and dust reddening. The tightness of the GBS provides an unprecedented way of identifying starforming galaxies and objects that are just evolving to (or from) what we call the "GALEX Green Valley (GGV)". At the red end of the
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  • Each point represents one individual measurement of the baryon fraction relative to the Universal baryon content, at a given distance around BOSS galaxies. Red points correspond to detections, positive signal with its corresponding error bar, whereas gree
    The total baryon content in the Universe is a well-defined quantity, in addition to being one of the most important cosmological parameters. A variety of observations (CMB, Ly-alpha forest, Big Bang nucleosynthesis) indicate that all baryons amount to around 4% of the total matter-energy content of the Universe. However, in the local Universe the contribution of all the observed components represents around 2% of the total. Therefore, half of the baryons in the local Universe remain elusive. In this article we have presented measurements of the kinematic Sunyaev-Zel’dovich effect in Planck
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  • Caption: Artist illustration of the central core of the planetary nebula Henize 2-428. Stars are not to scale. Credit: Gabriel Pérez, SMM (IAC).
    The planetary nebula (PN) stage is the ultimate fate of stars with mass 1 to 8 solar masses (M⊙). The origin of their complex morphologies is poorly understood, although several mechanisms involving binary interaction have been proposed. In close binary systems, the orbital separation is short enough for the primary star to overfill its Roche lobe as it expands during the Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) phase. The excess material ends up forming a common-envelope (CE) surrounding both stars. Drag forces would then result in the envelope being ejected into a bipolar PN whose equator is
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