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
  • Artistic impression of the V Sagittae star system, where a superdense white dwarf extracts matter from its larger companion. Unable to assimilate all the transferred mass, a bright ring of gas forms around it.
    Press release
    The IAC and the ULL participate in the discovery of an unusual ‘stellar dance’ that could culminate in an explosion visible from Earth
    A greedy white dwarf star in our own Milky Way galaxy is devouring its closest celestial companion at a rate never seen before, according to an international study involving the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC) and the University of La Laguna (ULL). The research, published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society , found the double star, named V Sagittae, is burning unusually bright as the super-dense white dwarf is gorging on its larger twin in a feeding frenzy. Experts think the stars are locked in an "extraterrestrial tango" as they orbit each other every
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  • Participantes del Programa de Verano para Estudiantes de la Alianza LSST Discovery 2025, celebrado en el marco del Taller Comunitario Rubin en Tucson (Arizona, EE. UU.). Daniel Cano Morales, estudiante de la ULL-IAC, aparece de pie, sexto por la izquierda
    Photomontage
    A student from the ULL and the IAC participates in the International Summer Student Program linked to the Vera C. Rubin Observatory
    Daniel Cano Morales, a physics student at the University of La Laguna (ULL) who is completing his final degree project (TFG) at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), has participated in the 2025 Summer Student Program organized by the LSST Discovery Alliance (LSST-DA) in Tucson (Arizona, USA). The meeting, held in parallel with the Rubin Community Workshop, brought together seventeen university students from LSST-DA member institutions around the world in July. The program offered participants a unique opportunity to present their research, interact with internationally renowned
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  • Momento del acto de bienvenida del congreso “Brown dwarfs keep their cool. 30 years of substellar science”, celebrado en La Gomera del 1 al 5 de septiembre de 2025
    Photomontage
    El IAC organiza un congreso internacional que conmemora el 30 aniversario del descubrimiento de las primeras enanas marrones
    El Hotel Jardín Tecina de La Gomera ha sido la sede del congreso internacional “Brown dwarfs keep their cool. 30 years of substellar science” , organizado por los investigadores del Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) Nicolas Lodieu y Victor J. S. Bejar, que ha reunido esta primera semana de septiembre a expertos de todo el mundo en el campo de los objetos subestelares. El encuentro conmemora el 30 aniversario de un descubrimiento histórico que marcó un antes y un después en la Astrofísica: la detección de las primeras enanas marrones. El acto inaugural contó con la presencia de
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  • David Aguado, IAC researcher who has obtained the ERC Starting Grant from the European Research Council.
    Press release
    The IAC wins the third ERC European Council 2025 grant with a project about the first stars in the Universe
    IAC researcher David Aguado has obtained a prestigious Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC), aimed at promoting promising young scientists. This is the third ERC grant -one of the most competitive and recognized of the Horizon Europe program- that the center has received so far this year, thus consolidating its international projection. These highly competitive grants provide up to €1.5 million over five years to support outstanding young scientists in establishing their own independent research groups and pursuing pioneering scientific ideas. Searching for the first stars
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  • R1_mass
    Research news
    A physically motivated galaxy size definition across different state-of-the-art hydrodynamical simulations
    Measuring galaxy sizes is essential for understanding how they were formed and evolved across time. However, traditional methods based on l ight concentration or isophotal densities often lack a clear physical meaning. A recent study from Trujillo+20 explores a more physically motivated definition: the radius R 1, where the stellar surface density falls to 1 solar masses per parsec square —roughly the threshold for gas to form stars in galaxies like the Milky Way. In this work, Arjona-Gálvez+25 uses over 1,000 galaxies from several state-of-the-art cosmological simulations (AURIGA, HESTIA
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  • Artist's impression of a binary system in which a compact star steals matter from its companion. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada
    Press release
    A team with the participation of the IAC and the ULL discovers that massive stars prefer to live in pairs even in galaxies with low metallicity
    Massive stars in metal-poor galaxies often have close partners, just like the massive stars in our metal-rich Milky Way. This has been discovered by an international scientific team in which research staff from the Instituto de Aastrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and the Universidad de La Laguna (ULL) participate. They used the European Very Large Telescope in Chile to monitor the velocity of massive stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud. The research is published in Nature Astronomy . For the past twenty years, astronomers have known that many massive stars in the metal-rich Milky Way have a
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