The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) has participated in a study which has discovered a group of stars very poor in metals and shrouded in a high fraction of iron dust, situated in the Large Magellanic Cloud. This work has used a combination of theoretical models of the formation of dust in circumstellar envelopes with infrared observations taken with the Spitzer Space Telescope. The work includes predictions for the future James Webb Space Telescope.

Casiana, an astrophysicist expert in galaxies, and Principal Investigator of the international collaboration ESTALLIDOS, will also lead the Sky Quality Group of the Canary Island Observatories. She succeeds the astrophysicist Carlos Martínez Roger who recently retired.

An international study, led by researchers at the IAC, reveal unknown details about the nature of a singular type of oscillatory phenomenon in spiral form detected in sunspots. The research, published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, was carried out using observations with the GREGOR telescope at the Teide Observatory.

Gas is essential to the process of forming a galaxy. During the first stages the amount of gas present determines the number of stars which will be in the galaxy. The galaxies with active nuclei (AGN) are those with a region of intense brightness in their centres. This brightness is produced by the presence of a supermassive black hole whose gravity makes it accumulate matter around it, in a process known as accretion. Supermassive black holes cause the surrounding gas to heat up, and some of it is driven towards the outer part of the galaxy (feedback effect). Until now it was believed that

On January 21st the Moon will again pass through the Earth0s shadow, acquiring the coppery glow characteristic of lunar eclipses. The eclipse will be visible from the whole of America, and from Atlantic Europe, where we will be able to see the phase of totality of the eclipse, although with the Moon low over the western horizon. This phenomenon will be broadcast live from the Teide Observatory on January 20th-21st, via the sky-live channel, with the collaboration of the European project STARS4ALL. In addition the eclipse will occur at the first full moon of the year, which will also be a

An international team of astrophysicists that includes researchers at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and the University of La Laguna (ULL) has uncovered an enormous bubble current being ‘blown’ by the regular eruptions from a binary star system within the Andromeda Galaxy. The results have been published today in 'Nature'.