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.

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  • Left panel: spatial distribution of the auroral [N II] λ5755 emission line in the PN M 1-42 prior to applying the recombination contribution. Middle panel: spatial distribution of the N II λ5679 recombination line. Right panel: same as left panel after applying the recombination contribution correction.
    Research news
    MUSE reveals different gas components in planetary nebulae
    We present a detailed study of the gas chemical abundances in planetary nebulae (PNe), the final fate of solar-like stars, through high spatial resolution Integral Field Unit spectroscopy (IFU) obtained with the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) attached to the 8.2-m Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile. We focused on three PNe with high abundance discrepancy factors (ADF > 20), which is a well-known and major unresolved problem in nebular astrophysics: chemical abundances obtained from faint optical recombination lines (ORL) yield systematically larger values than those obtained from
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  • Images calendar 2022
    Press release
    2022 Astronomical Calendars
    The Unit of Communication and Scientific Culture (UC3) of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) in collaboration with the Museum of Science and the Cosmos (Museums of Tenerife) has edited an astronomical wall calendar, with astronomical ephemerides for the year 2022, which can be consulted and downloaded in digital form and can be obtained in physical form at the IAC Headquarters in La Laguna (Tenerife) and at the Centro de Astrofísica en La Palma (CALP), in Breña Baja (La Palma). The 12 astronomical images which illustrate it have been obtained by astrophotographer Daniel López
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  • Wolf-Rayet star
    Press release
    Astronomers discover first supernova explosion of a Wolf-Rayet star
    An international study, with the participation of researchers from the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC or Grantecan) affiliated to the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), has discovered a first-of-its-kind exploding star, thought to have existed only in theory. The findings are being published today in Nature. In the not-so-distant past, the discovery of a supernova – an exploding star – was considered a rare occasion. Today, advanced measuring instruments and analysis methods make it possible to detect fifty such explosions on a daily basis , which has also increased the probability
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  • Artist's picture of the remnant of globular cluster C-19 in the Milky Way.
    Press release
    A primitive stellar structure helps us to unravel the earliest phases of the Milky Way
    Just as archaeology examines the ground with great care to find valuable objects which helps us to get to know ancient civilizations, astronomers look at the stars in the Milky Way in the hope of finding clues to help us understand the earliest period of development of our Galaxy. A team of researchers, in which the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias participates, publishes today in Nature the discovery of the oldest globular cluster remnant discovered to date. This study combines data from ESA's GAIA satellite with observations made at the Gran Telescopio Canarias, installed at the Roque
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  • Gemínidas 2020
    Press release
    El mejor regalo para comenzar el año: Cuadrántidas 2022
    La madrugada del 4 de enero el proyecto europeo Interreg EELabs retransmitirá la lluvia de meteoros de las Cuadrántidas desde el Observatorio del Teide, del Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, a través del canal sky-live.tv. Las Gemínidas y las Cuadrántidas son, junto a las Perseidas, las lluvias de meteoros más intensas del año, con una actividad que roza los 100 meteoros por hora (ZHR, tasas horarias cenitales) y que se mantiene constante año tras año (actividad cuadrántidas año 2021 en IMO). La noche del 3 al 4 de enero, además, será un momento óptimo para la observación de esta lluvia
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  • Two different frames of the galaxy evolution, being an oblate system at early times (left) which is transformed into a prolate spheroid (right) due to a merger. Top: Line of sight velocity map. Bottom: RGB rendering using I, V, B filters.
    Research news
    Origin of stellar prolate rotation in a cosmologically simulated faint dwarf
    In the current cosmological model, galaxies are formed in a hierarchical way, by merging with each other. These mergers can lead to kinematic anomalies that can be used to shed light onto the formation history of the galaxy. However, it is important to be able to distinguish whether these anomalies are an unambiguous signal of a past merger or if they can originate from different processes . One of these kinematic anomalies is prolate rotation. A galaxy shows prolate rotation if it rotates around its major axis. This kinematic characteristic is relatively frequent in massive galaxies and it
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