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.

  • VI Meeting on Science with GTC opening conference. From left to right: María Rosa Zapatero, Rafael Rebolo, Rafael Rodrigo, María Vicenta Mestre, José Carlos Guirado, José de Jesús González and Vicent Martínez. Credut: Silvia Granja (IAC).
    The scientific meeting about the largest optical and infrared telescope in the world was inaugurated today, Wednesday 12th December, in the centre of the University-Business Foundation of the University of Valencia. The meeting, which will continue until Friday, is focused on the analysis of the most recent resuilts obtained with the GTC and on future observational strategies.
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  • Image of the Mercury transit obtain by Swedish Solar Telescope in 2016
    Next Monday, November 11th, it will be possible to follow the transit of the planet Mercury across the face of the Sun from the Canary Island Observatories, from 12:36 p.m. to 18:04, on the channel YouTube IAC vídeos, of the Institute de Astrofísica de Canarias. A transit is defined as the passage of one astronomical object in front of another, so that the nearer occults a part of the surface of the farther. Only the inner planets (Marcury and Venus) can transit the Sun, from our viewpoint on Earth. In any century there are 13 transits of Mercury and the following transit will not occur
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  • Ceremonia de cambio de propiedad del NOT
    The Universities of Turku (UTU) and Aarhus (AU) are the new owners of the Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT) situated in the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (ORM). The two institutions take over from the Nordic Optical Telescope Scientific Associations (NOTSA), a non-profit organization created in 1984 by the Reseearch Councils of Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Norway, with the later incorporation of Iceland, in 1997. On 1 October, a delegation from both universities took part in a simple event at the ORM, which was also attended by representatives of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias
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  • Image, left-hand panel, and reflectance spectrum, right-hand panel, of interstellar comet C/2019 Q4 (Borisov) obtained by the 10.4~m Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC), located at the El Roque de Los Muchachos Observatory (La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain), which is managed by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) together with the Teide Observatory in the island of Tenerife.
    The spectrum acquired by GTC of interstellar comet C/2019 Q4 (Borisov) reveals that this object has a surface composition not unlike that found in Solar System comets. Shortly before dawn on September 13th, Julia de León, Miquel Serra-Ricart, Javier Licandro, all members of IAC's Solar System Group, and Carlos Raúl de la Fuente Marcos, from the Complutense University of Madrid, obtained high resolution images and visible spectra of comet C/2019 Q4 (Borisov) using the OSIRIS instrument at the 10.4m GTC, installed in the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (Garafía, La Palma). Observations were
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