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.

  • Left: Colour image of the Large Magellanic Cloud, directly obtained from SMASH data. Right: Spatial distribution of the stellar mass fraction of stars younger (top) and older (bottom) than 2 billion years.
    Some galaxies in the Universe display beautiful and appealing features known as "spiral arms". However, not all galaxies show spiral arms in the same manner. Among the variety of cases the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a dwarf galaxy infalling towards the Milky Way, stands out. The LMC is the prototype of an entire family of galaxies, the Magellanic Spirals that are characterised by the presence of a barred stellar structure near their centres and a single spiral arm. Spiral patterns can form after galactic collisions, with subsequent star formation piling up in these arms. Nevertheless, we
    Advertised on
  • The spatial profiles of the observed and expected [O III] 4363 (orange and green, respectively), residuals from subtracting the expected collisional [O III] 4363 profile from the observed one (red), and the O II 4649 profile scaled (blue).
    The long-standing difference in chemical abundances determined from optical recombination lines and collisionally excited lines raises questions about our understanding of atomic physics, as well as the assumptions made when determining physical conditions and chemical abundances in astrophysical nebulae. Here, we study the recombination contribution of [O III] 4363 and the validity of the line ratio [O III] 4363/4959 as a temperature diagnostic in planetary nebulae with a high abundance discrepancy. We derive a fit for the recombination coefficient of [O III] 4363 that takes into account
    Advertised on
  • Photogram from an animation which shows the ultrahot Neptune orbiting its star Credit: Ricardo Ramirez, University of Chile
    A team of astronomers from the University of Chile, in collaboration with the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and the University of La Laguna (ULL), has discovered the first “ultrahot Neptune”, which is in orbita round the nearby star LTT 9779. The planet is so close to its star that its year lasts only 19 hours, and the star’s radiation heats the planet to more than 1,700 degrees centigrade. At those temperaturas, the heavy elements such as iron can be ionized in the atmosphere and molecules can dissociate, which makes this a unique laboratory for studying the chemistry of
    Advertised on
  • Material exógeno Ryugu y Bennu
    The two near-Earth asteroids Ryugu and Bennu, primary targets of the Hayabusa2 (JAXA) and OSIRIS-REx (NASA) space missions, keep surprising us. In two companion papers presented in Nature Astronomy, researchers have found exogenous bright material scattered across the asteroids’ surfaces. Members of the Solar System Group of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) have contributed to this discovery, in particular Dr. Eri Tatsumi, who is the first author of the paper presenting findings on Ryugu (Hayabusa2).
    Advertised on
  • En esta ilustración, WD 1856 b, un potencial planeta del tamaño de Júpiter, orbita su tenue estrella enana blanca cada día y medio. Crédito: Centro de Vuelo Espacial Goddard de la NASA.
    With data from NASA’s TESS satellite, from the now retired Spitzer Space Telescope, and the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) an international team of astronomers, with participation from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) has detected what appears to be an intact planet in orbit around a white dwarf, the dense remains of a star similar to the Sun , and only 40 % bigger in diameter than the Earth. This finding is published today in Nature magazine.
    Advertised on