On Friday night, 15 February, asteroid 2012 DA14 maked a close approach to our planet. In Spain, it first was seen from the peninsula at 21:00 local time (UT 20:00*) and half-an-hour later it was visible from the Canaries at 20:30 local time (UT 20:30). It was the closest approach by an asteroid since we have been able to predict their orbits. The IAC will show direct time-lapse videos on this page, as well as links to retransmissions. (*) In winter Universal Time (UT) coincides with local Canarian time. Uno de los vídeos ha sido seleccionado como Astronomical Image of the Day JUST TO GIVE

IAC researchers have confirmed the possible existence of large fullerene molecules in the Universe. These are the most complex molecules discovered to date

The Universe in 3D, a brief presentation, will open the exhibition in Tegueste next Saturday, 19 January, at 19:30 in the Prebend Pacheco Hall

Stellar-mass black holes (BHs) are mostly found in X-ray transients, a subclass of X-ray binaries that exhibit violent outbursts. None of the ~50 galactic BHs known show eclipses, which is surprising for a random distribution of inclinations. Swift J1357.2−093313 is a very faint X-ray transient detected in 2011 by the Swift telescope. Our spectroscopic evidences show that it contains a BH in a 2.8h orbital period. High-time resolution optical light curves display profound dips of up to 0.8 mag (50% of the optical flux) in 2min without X-ray counterparts. The observed properties are best

As early as 10 Gyr ago, galaxies with more than 10 ^11 M_sun in stars already existed. While most of these  massive galaxies must have subsequently transformed through on-going star formation and mergers with other galaxies, a small fraction (<0.1%) may have survived untouched till today. Searches for such relic galaxies, useful windows to explore the early Universe, have been inconclusive to date: galaxies with masses and sizes like those observed at high redshift (M_*>10 ^11 M_sun; R_e<1.5 kpc) have been found in the local Universe, but their stars are far too young for the galaxy to be a

We have found evidence that the presence of ‘carbon onions’ and other large molecules derived from fullerene could be commonplace in space. These are the most complex molecules detected so far and their discovery has important implications regarding our understanding of circumstellar and interstellar physics and chemisty, as well as of molecular processes in the final stages of stellar evolution. The work also provides new insights into understanding the origin and composition of the so-called diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs), one of the most enigmatic phenomena in astrophysics. Discovered