When the first exoplanet was discovered orbiting a star in 1995 the astrophysics community could not have imagined that, two decades later, the study of exoplanets would form one of the fundamental pillars of modern astronomy, and that the number of exoplanets discovered would reach a total of 1000, as attested by the latest edition of The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia. With the excuse of having reached such a round number of planets found we now present you with so key facts on these distant worlds beyond the Solar System. For this we let Hans Deeg and Roi Alonso, researchers at the

The IAC has launched the SolarLab, an outreach project aiming to bring the mysteries of the Sun to secondary schools and colleges in the Canary Islands. The project loans a solar telescope to educational centres for a week so that students can observe the closest star to the Earth. The star has just passed what is known as 'solar maximum', which occurs every 11 years and marks the ideal moment at which to observe and study the Sun. The project will run for two years and will be supplemented with educational courses for teaching staff in the islands in order to improve their knowledge of the

The finding will help to clarify the nature of main belt comets (MBC) , bodies with an asteroidal orbit which , however , have a tail like a comet.

By Natalia Ruiz Zelmanovitch There are many kinds of stars in the Universe that are generally classified according to their brightness and colour. The brighter a star is, the bigger it is, and this property is directly related to the mass and age of the star. The most massive stars rapidly consume all the fuel in their interior, and this means not only that their lives are shorter than those of less massive stars but also that their deaths are spectacular. When they reach their end, they explode as supernovae, providing us, in most cases, with an impressive display in the form of magnificent

On 15 February the asteroid 2012 DA14 came within 27,700 kilometres of the Earth, making it our closest ever encounter of a Near Earth Object (NEO). The study, carried out by planetary scientists, has determined the shape, size and primordial chemical composition of the asteroid. These results will help develop strategies against potentially dangerous asteroids in terms of diverting or destroying them, or mitigating the effects of their impact. Asteroide 2012 DA14 simulation: Preview and spanish description DOWNLOAD VIDEO: mov, 1920x1080p, h264, 403 MB, 36 seconds. This animtion shows

The above image has been chosen as 'image of the month' by the Hubble Heritage Project and 'image of the week' by the European Space Agency (ESA). It shows the protostar IRAS20324+4057, a very young star 4500 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus (The Swan). IRAS 20324+4057 Video High Resolution Image Scientific research Other links of interest: Isaac Newton Telescope IPHAS Public Survey The Hubble Heritage Project Website For further information: Spanish press release