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.

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  • Out best-fit model for the rotation curve of the Milky Way. Asterisks represent the natural weighted radial bins derived from observational data by Sofue et al. (2009) with their associated error bars. The different lines represent the contribution of the
    Research news
    Dark Matter, Magnetic Fields, and the Rotation Curve of the Milky Way.
    The study of the disk rotation curve of our Galaxy at large distances provides an interesting scenario for us to test whether magnetic fields should be considered as a non-negligible dynamical ingredient. By assuming a bulge, an exponential disk for the stellar and gaseous distributions, and a dark halo and disk magnetic fields, we fit the rotation velocity of the Milky Way. In general, when the magnetic contribution is added to the dynamics, a better description of the rotation curve is obtained. Our main conclusion is that magnetic fields should be taken into account for the Milky Way
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  • GJ 1214b transit light curves obtained with GTC/OSIRIS tunable filters. In the bottom panels, the residuals of the curve fit are shown for each filter.
    Research news
    Narrow Band Halpha photometry of the super-Earth GJ 1214b with GTC/OSIRIS tunable filters.
    Aims. The super-Earth planet GJ 1214b has recently been the focus of several studies, which use the transit spectroscopy technique to determine the nature of its atmosphere. Here, we focus on the Halpha line as a tool to further restrict the nature of GJ 1214b’s atmosphere. Methods. We used the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) OSIRIS instrument to acquire narrow-band photometry with tunable filters. We were able to observe the primary transit of the super-Earth GJ 1214 in three bandpasses: two centered in the continuum around Halpha (653.5 nm and 662.0 nm) and one centered at the line core
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  • Press release
    El GTC empleará la cámara ultrasensible más rápida del mundo
    OCAM 2 cuadriplica la resolución y multiplica por tres la velocidad de instrumentos similares. Con este dispositivo, que se unirá al sistema óptico adaptativo del GTC, el mayor telescopio del mundo podrá vencer las turbulencias de la atmósfera terrestre y obtener imágenes con una nitidez similar a la del telescopio espacial Hubble.
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  • Press release
    Las galaxias también cambian por dentro
    Las grandes transformaciones que experimentan las galaxias en su interior marcarán el futuro de las investigaciones sobre su evolución. Este candente campo de investigación ha centrado la XXIII edición de la 'Canary Islands Winter School of Astrophysics', organizada por el IAC. Dos semanas de charlas y debates que concluyen hoy en el Puerto de la Cruz (Tenerife).
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