João Mira-Gomes, Portuguese Ambassador to Spain, visited the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) headquarters in La Laguna this morning, together with Vicente M. Álvarez Gil, Portuguese Consul in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, and several members of his team, accompanied by Rafael Rebolo, Director of the IAC, and Mahmoudreza Oshagh, senior postdoctoral researcher. During their tour of the facilities, they were informed about the different projects that are being developed in the framework of the Portuguese-Spanish collaboration. The IAC participates in several consortiums and scientific

A recent study analyses data collected at 44 of the darkest places in the world, including the Canary Island Observatories, to develop the first complete reference method to measure the natural brightness of the night sky using low-cost photometers. Of the 44 photometers in the survey, the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (Garafía, La Palma, Canary Islands) stands out at the darkest of all the skies analysed. The night sky is not completely dark; even in the remotest places there is a glow in the sky produced by natural components, both terrestrial and extraterrestrial, and by artificial

The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and the University of La Laguna (ULL) strengthened their relationship via an agreement to regulate the teaching and research collaboration between the two institutions. The agreement sets up an operational structure and the various commitments so that the two institutions can develop successfully their objectives of creating and spreading knowledge through scientific activity and unitersity teaching. The agreement was signed yesterday in the IACTEC building in the La Laguna Science and Technology Park (in Las Mantecas) by Rafael Rebolo, the

The detection of the axion would mark a key episode in the history of science. This hypothetical particle could resolve two fundamental problems of Modern Physics at the same time: the problema of Charge and Parity in the strong interaction, and the mystery of dark matter. However, in spite of the high scientific interest in finding it, the search at high radio frequency -above 6 GHz- has been almost left aside for the lack of the high sensitivity technology which could be built at reasonable cost. Until now.

On May 5th the Earth will pass through the cloud of dust and small fragments of rock which comet 1P/Halley left behind during one of its approaches to the Sun, giving rise to the meteors known as the Eta Aquariids. The sky-liv.tv channel, in collaboration with the Energy Efficiency Laboratories (EELabs) project coordinated by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), will broadcast this meteor shower as part of its activities in “Sounds of the Sky, a Citizen Science project of the FECYT to involve the whole family in classifying meteors, and also to make this task easier for visually

DRAGO, the infrared camera developed by the team at IACTEC-Space of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, has seen its “first light”. The instrument, placed in orbit in January from Cape Canaveral is in its commissioning phase. The images taken show the mouth of the rio Meghna in the Ganges delta, the largest delta in the world. Even though it is a preliminary test, the quality of the results is well above expectation and show what DRAGO will be able to do once it is fully operational. On January 24th 2021 the infrared camera DRAGO ( Demonstrator for Remote Analysis of Ground