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
  • Investigadores del IAC en el congreso SSSIF
    Photomontage
    The second phase of the ALISIO-1 mission, which will take the latest version of the DRAGO infrared camera into space, gets under way
    After the excellent results from its predecesor, DRAGO (Demonstrator for Remote Analysis of Ground Observations) the updated version of this instrument, designed to observe the Earth from space in now ready. DRAGO-2 has optics with higher resolution, and fills the need for images in the short wavelength range of the Canaries and of other parts of the world. This marks the start of the stage of design and manufacture of the satellite in which it will be launched. This satellite has been named ALISIO-1 (Advanced Land-Imaging Satellite for Infrared Observations) and will be developed in
    Advertised on
  • 2MASS J20395358+4222505
    Press release
    Astronomers find in the Milky Way an unusual blue supergiant star travelling at high velocity
    An international team of astronomers, led by researchers from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and the University of La Laguna (ULL), has found one of the most massive and luminous stars in our galaxy, behind a dense cloud of interstellar gas and dust. It is a supergiant, with a mass almost 50 times the mass of the Sun, with a radius almost 40 times the solar radius, and a luminosity approaching a million times that of our own star, and has been given the descriptor 2MASS J20395358+4222505. But its most disconcerting aspect for the researchers is a variation in its velocity of
    Advertised on
  • Diego Blas
    Interview
    DIEGO BLAS: “We are in a golden period when the connection between theory and observations is increasingly necessary"
    The gravitational force needed for the universe to evolve from when it was almost uniform, during the Big Bang, until galaxies, stars, and planets were formed is provided by the “dark matter”. But in spite of the essential role of this basic component, which is estimated to make up some 80% of the matter in the universe, scientists know virtually nothing about its nature, behaviour, and composition, which is one of the main challenges in current physics and cosmology. Aiming to give answers to these questions the researcher Diego Blas, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Physics of King’s
    Advertised on
  • ALMA cuásar
    Press release
    Supermassive black holes change the central regions of galaxies
    Cristina Ramos Almeida, a researcher at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), has led research which used data from the ALMA telescope in Chile to understand how supermassive black holes impact the host galaxies they inhabit. The results are published today in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
    Advertised on
  • Abell 370
    Press release
    IAC scientists complete an unprecedented study of the masses of over 500 clusters of galaxies
    A team of researchers from the cosmology group at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias has obtained one of the most accurate measurements of the masses of clusters of galaxies, and of their relation with the amount of hot gas in these clusters. To do this they have studied the dynamics of the galaxies in 570 clusters selected from the catalogue produced by the Planck satellite (ESA). This study has been produced during four years of work, in which over 10,000 spectra have been obtained with the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG) and the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) at the Roque de los
    Advertised on