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.

List view
  • The left panel shows the young stellar population (YSP) distribution overlaid with contours showing the advancing side (blue) and receding side (red) of the outflow. The right panel shows the same but with contours of W80 (i.e. the width of the 5007 [OIII] line).
    Research news
    Evidence of the impact of quasar driven outflows on recent star formation
    We present the results of our spatially resolved investigation into the interplay between the ages of the stellar populations and the kinematics of the warm ionised outflows in the well-studied type II quasar Markarian 34. Utilising integral field spectroscopic (IFS) data, we determine the spatial distribution of the young stellar population (YSP; age < 100 Myr) using spectral synthesis modelling. We also employ the 5007 [OIII] emission line as a tracer of the warm ionised gas kinematics. We demonstrate a spatial correlation between the outer edges of the advancing side of the outflow and an
    Advertised on
  • Press release
    The exhibition “AstrónomAs” which gives visibility to women in Astronomy has arrrived in Tenerife
    It can be visited in the Museum of Science and the Cosmos until 22nd May. Next Wednesday, April 6th, there will be an inauguration ceremony with the women researchers at the IAC Elena Khomenko and Adriana de Lorenzo-Cáceres, with a talk and a concert by Paula Espinoza, a student of Astrophysics and finalist in the televisión programme “La Voz”. In addition Paula is the author of the sound track of the exhibition. “AstronomAs” is an exhibition in two formats, physical and digita, whose aim is to show the role of women in astronomy, and to stimulate scientific and technological vocations. It
    Advertised on
  • Vista del consejero Valbuena
    Photomontage
    The IAC presents its plan to reduce its carbon footprint by 80% to the Department of Ecological Transition
    On Tuesday Jose Antonio Valbuena visited the installations of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) in La Laguna and the Teide Observatory The Councillor for the Ecological Transition, the fight against Climate Change, and Territorial Planning of the Government of the Canaries, José Antonio Valbuena had a working meeting on Tuesday with the Director and the Deputy Director of the IAC, Rafael Rebolo and Casiana Muñoz Tuñón, and the person in charge of the Environmental Commission of the IAC, Antonio Mampaso, to learn about the Institute’s sustainability plan, whose aim is to reduce
    Advertised on
  • Vyacheslav (Slava) Lukin
    Interview
    VYACHESLAV LUKIN: “Solar observations without theoretical and computational models are like a car without wheels”
    Disclaimer footnote: Any opinion, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the US National Science Foundation. Vyacheslav (Slava) Lukin is a Program Director in the National Science Foundation (NFS) Division of Physics with responsibility for the program in Plasma Physics. In his own research, he focuses on understanding “magnetic reconnection”, a compex physical phenomenon which causes the aurora borealis, solar flares, coronal mass ejections and gamma ray bursts. This is a process which
    Advertised on
  • Winds launched by a supermassive black hole impact the formation of new stars in the galaxy Markarian 34
    Press release
    Caught in the act: the winds driven by supermassive black holes directly impact star formation
    Patricia Bessiere, a researcher at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), has led research which has used data from the KECK telescope in Hawaii to understand the impact that active galactic nuclei have on star formation in their host galaxies. The results are published today in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters. One of the key questions that astronomers are trying to answer is ‘Why do galaxies look the way they do?’. Computer simulations of how galaxies formed and evolved suggest that there should be many more very large galaxies than we actually
    Advertised on
  • Artist's impression of the X-ray binary Swift J1858.6-0814. We can see how the neutron star accretes material, via an accretion disk, from the companion star, and how some of that material is ejected in the form of a warm wind. Credits: Gabriel Pérez Díaz, SMM (IAC).
    Research news
    An ultraviolet wind in a neutron star X-ray binary transient
    All disc-accreting astrophysical objects produce powerful disc winds. In compact binaries containing neutron stars or black holes, accretion often takes place during violent outbursts. The main disc wind signatures during these eruptions are blue-shifted X-ray absorption lines, which are preferentially seen in disc-dominated ‘soft states’. By contrast, optical wind-formed lines have recently been detected in ‘hard states’, when a hot corona dominates the luminosity. The relationship between these signatures is unknown, and no erupting system has as yet revealed wind-formed lines between the
    Advertised on