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.

  • John Stansberry, researcher of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), in the United States, and lecturer of the XXVIII Canary Islands Winter School of Astrophysics, organized by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC). Credit: Elena Mora (I
    Since he was a PhD student dealing with the volcanism of Io, one of Jupiter's satellites, he has been constantly trying to get to know the coldest and distant objects in the Solar System by space missions Spitzer, Herschel, and the future James Webb Space Telescope. The confines of our planetary system and the instruments on board space satellites are the specialty of John Stansberry, researcher of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), in the United States, and lecturer of the XXVIII Canary Islands Winter School of Astrophysics , organized by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias
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  • Photons are emitted from a galaxy QSO B0218+357 in the direction of the Earth. Due to the gravitational effect of the intervening galaxy B0218+357G photons form two paths that reach Earth with a delay of about 11 days. Photons were observed by both the Fe
    Scientists working with the Major Atmospheric Gamma-ray Imaging Cherenkov (MAGIC) observatory report the discovery of the most distant gamma-ray source ever observed at very high energies, thanks to the “replay” of an enormous flare by a galactic gravitational lens as foreseen by Einstein’s General Relativity.
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  • Sebastien Lebonnois, researcher at the Laboratory of Dynamical Meteorology in the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) expert in planetary atmospheres. He is the first lecturer at the XXVIII Canary Island Winter School of Astrophysics. Credit: E
    If studying the Earth's atmosphere and all the processes which control it sounds very complicated, imagine doing this for all the planets of the Solar system. Then imagine that, using mathematical formulae, you could build climate models which reproduce the different atmospheric phenomena that occur, for example on Venus or on Titan (the largest moon of Saturn). All this is possible, and these models can even be used to improve our understanding of the Earth's climate and even, in the last analysis, to find exoplanets with the characteristics necessary to support life. This is the research
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  • Julia de León, researcher of the IAC and organizer of the XXVIII Canary Islands Winter School of Astrophysics. Credit: Elena Mora (IAC).
    Between her stay at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, in Garafía (La Palma), where Julia de León was gathering data for her PhD thesis on over a hundred asteroids, and the NASA space missions in which she is now involved, there have been years of enormous effort and observations. In La Palma she began to specialize in the mineral composition of asteroids, and as the years have passed her research is still oriented towards discovering what is happening on objects which are a thousands of kilometres from us, to understand better what is happening here on Earth. Today this researcher at
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  • Semana de la Ciencia
    Just as its previous years, this institute will collaborate in the activities of the Minifestivals in Grand Canary and in Tenerife, will offer guided visits by schoolchildren to the Teide Observatory, and will present, in the Museum of Science and the Cosmos, the audiovisual series "IAC Investiga" and also the project Niépce: from the negative to the positive" a tribute from astronomy to photography during its 200th anniversary, because it allowed the data content from telescopes to be boosted by a large factor.
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