The sessions of the second day of the Starmus festival, moderated by the astrophysicist Jill Tarter, Director of the SETI project, began with a talk by the Nobel Laureate for 2011 in Physics, Brian Schmidt who, together with Adam Reiss and Saul Perlmutter, discovered that the universe is in a state of accelerating expansion. Schmidt, for whom “the power of astronomy is that it lets us look directly into the past”, talked about the “dark” dark universe, referring to the dark matter (26%) and the dark energy (69%) of the universe. In his talk, he explained how he arrived at the conclusion that

Scientifics from the Instituto Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) participate in a study whose results shows how cosmic gas triggers stellar birth in galaxies. This process, which is very difficult to observe, could explain the formation of the Milky Way.

The third edition of the Starumus festival began this aftenoon in Tenerife with the welcome address of Garik Israelian, IAC researcher, founder and director of Starmus, who said that the motto of the festival this time is Beyond Starmus "because it is a special event in honour of Stephen Hawking". He was followed by Rafael Rebolo, the Director of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) who made the point that "we are very proud of the work of Stephen Hawking, and for that reason we have named him Honorary Professor of the IAC". He also stressed the potential of the Canary Islands for

The writer and journalist from Madrid, who has participated in the multidisciplinary project at the IAC "En un lugar del Universo...", has described as "marvellous" her experience visiting the Canary Island Observatories, and thinks that "everyone should be obliged to do this at least once in their lives"

From next Monday, June 27th until July 2nd , STARMUS, the multidisciplinary festival which brings together art, music, astrophysics and space science, will be held in Tenerife and La Palma. The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias and the Gran Telescopio CANARIAS will again collaborate in this festival which, in its third edition, will pay tribute to the British cosmologist and physicist Stephen Hawking.

From 25 to 28 July, the IAC will host at its headquarters in La Laguna (Tenerife), the second edition of this training course in astronomy aimed at European teachers of science and technology. Tuition is free for Spanish teachers and registration will remain open until July 15 or until full capacity is reached.