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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  • One of the main pyramidal buildings of the central square of Caral, whose major axis is oriented parallel to the Supe river, and towards the major southern lunastice. Credit: A. César González-García (Incipit-CSIC).
    Press release
    Astronomy and Landscape in the city of Caral, the oldest city in the Americas
    A team of researchers, led by the Instituto de Ciencias del Patrimonio (Incipit-CSIC) and the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), in collaboration with the team from the Arqueological Zone of Caral (Perú) led by Dr. Ruth Shady Solís, has established the relation between the position of the monuments of the Supe Culture (Perú), their orientations, and some astronomical and topographic features, which opens the way to the analysis of the way the inhabitants of this valley conceived space and time 5000 years ago. The results of the study have just been published in the journal Latin
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  • Firma del acuerdo de gestión del Centro de Visitantes
    Press release
    Agreement on the management of the Roque de los Muchachos Visitor Centre
    The Cabildo of La Palma, the Town Council of Garafía, and the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), joined via a videoconference, signed an agreement to collaborate in the management of the future tourist centre which will be devoted to the popularization of Astronomy, and of the natural and cultural heritage of the highest point on the Island of La Palma, were the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory is sited. The President of the Cabildo of La Palma, Mariano Zapata, the Mayor of Garafía, Yeray Rodríguez, and the Director of the IAC Rafael Rebolo participated in the signing. Also
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  • HST imaging and narrow and broad components ALMA maps of ID2299 (adapted from Puglisi et al. 2021).
    Research news
    A titanic interstellar medium ejection from a massive starburst galaxy
    Feedback-driven winds from star formation or active galactic nuclei might be a relevant channel for the abrupt quenching of star formation in massive galaxies. However, both observations and simulations support the idea that these processes are non-conflictingly co-evolving and self-regulating. Furthermore, evidence of disruptive events that are capable of fast quenching is rare, and constraints on their statistical prevalence are lacking. Here we present a massive starburst galaxy at redshift z=1.4, which is ejecting ~46% of its molecular gas mass at a startling rate of >10,000 solar masses
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  • Distribution of red luminous galaxies and the corresponding cosmic web at redshift 0.4-0.7 using 10 redshift snapshots to describe the cosmic evolution in the computations (left panel; galaxies and the underlying cosmic web in red and grey, respectively). The primordial density fluctuations at redshift 100 are shown in the right panel. It is shown how the survey mask and radial selection effects are considered and the whole volume in the box is sampled with Bayesian models.
    Research news
    Efficient Bayesian inference of the evolving cosmic web from galaxy surveys
    We present COSMIC BIRTH (COSMological Initial Conditions from Bayesian Inference Reconstructions with THeoretical models): an algorithm to reconstruct the primordial and evolved cosmic density fields from galaxy surveys on the light-cone. The displacement and peculiar velocity fields are obtained from forward modelling at different redshift snapshots given some initial cosmic density field within a Gibbs-sampling scheme. This allows us to map galaxies, observed in a light-cone, to a single high redshift and hereby provide tracers and the corresponding survey completeness in Lagrangian space
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  • OPTICON-RadioNet PILOT (ORP
    Press release
    Launch of Europe’s largest astronomy network
    Two astronomy networks are coming together to form the OPTICON-RadioNet PILOT ( ORP), the Europe’s largest ground-based astronomy collaborative network that it will provide scientists with access to a wide range of instruments, promote training for young astronomers, and open the way to new discoveries. With €15 million in funding from the H2020 programme, the CNRS will coordinate the project, together with the University of Cambridge and the Max-Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy. The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) participates with its observatories and in instrumental
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  • The presence of ionized gas around galaxies with moves with them leaves a trace in the microwave background radiation (left panel) which can be detected knowing the pattern of velocities of the galaxies provided by the map of fluctuations in their redshift (right panel). Credit: Carlos Hernández-Monteagudo (IAC).
    Press release
    New light on baryonic matter and gravity on cosmic scales
    Scientists estimate that dark matter and dark energy together are some 95% of the gravitational material in the universe while the remaining 5% is baryonic matter, which is the “normal” matter composing stars, planets, and living beings. However for decades almost one half of this matter has not been found either. Now, using a new technique, a team in which the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) has participated, has shown that this “missing” baryonic matter is found filling the space between the galaxies as hot, low density gas. The same technique also gives a new tool that shows
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