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.

  • Sombrero galaxy (M104). Credit: Manuel Jiménez/Giuseppe Donatiello.
    According to the latest cosmological models, large spiral galaxies such as the Milky Way grew by absorbing smaller galaxies, by a sort of galactic cannibalism. Evidence for this is given by very large structures, the tidal stellar streams, which are observed around them, which are the remains of these satellite galaxies. But the full histories of the majority of these cases are hard to study, because these flows of stars are very faint, and only the remains of the most recent mergers have been detected.
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  • Fotômetro Pico dos Homes
    There are now 10 sensors monitoring the night-time darkness of the island of Corvo to determine the impact of artificial lighting on the sea birds. The installation of the photometers took place this week, thanks to municipal collaboration and that of SPEA Azores, one of the five centers in Macaronesia which are working in the project Interreg EELabs, coordinated by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias. During the coming years the light pollution laboratory of the EELabs project on Corvo will measure the propagation of the artificial night-time lighting within the natural ecosystems of
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  • Image of the simulated local group used for the article. Left, image of dark matter; on the right, gas distribution. The three main galaxies of the Local Group (MW, M31 and M33) are indicated. Credit: CLUES simulation team.
    Historically most scientists thought that once a satellite galaxy has passed close by its higher mass parent galaxy its star formation would stop because the larger galaxy would remove the gas from it, leaving it shorn of the material it would need to make new stars. However, for the first time, a team led by the researcher at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), Arianna di Cintio, has shown using numerical simulations that this is not always the case. The results of the study were recently published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS).
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  • Governing Committee of the Roque de los Muchachos Visitor Centre
    Representatives of the Cabildo of La Palma, the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, and the Town Council of Garafía met yesterday at the Roque de los Muchachos to maintain the work needed to set up this important tourist and science outreach infrastructure. Previously they had visited the building to check on the progress of the work which is under way. The highest point on the island of La Palma was host yesterday to a meeting of the Governing Committee of the Roque de los Muchachos visitor centre. This committee is charged with monitoring the way the project is proceeding, and is
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  • Artist’s impression of the Nu2 Lupi planetary system. Credit: ESA.
    The exoplanet satellite hunter CHEOPS of the European Space Agency (ESA), in which the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) is participating along with other European institutions, has unexpectedly detected a third planet passing in front of its star while it was exploring two previously known planets around the same star. This transit, according to researchers, will reveal exciting details about a strange planet “without a known equivalent”.
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  • Participants in the meeting between the IAC and the ULPGC to renew the collaboration agreement of the Programme of Medical Technology of the IAC. Credit: Inés Bonet (IAC).
    The Director of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), Rafael Rebolo; the Deputy Director, Casiana Muñoz-Tuñón; the Rector of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC), Lluís Serra Majem; the Vice-rector of Research and Transfer, Marisol Izquierdo; and Juan Ruiz Alzola, director of the Group of Medical Technological and Audiovisual Research of the University Institute of Biomedical and Health Research of the ULPGC, met recently at the headquarters of the Institute in San Cristóbal de La Laguna with the aim of activating the new agreement between the two institutions for
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