On October 31st 1988 just 30 year ago today, the Spanish Government passed the Law for the Protection of the Astronomical Quality of the Observatories of the IAC, which became the first national law for protection of the sky in any country in the world.

After two years travelling through space, the NASA OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has started to obtain images of the mission target, primitive asteroid Bennu. As part of the Scientific Team of this mission, researchers from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), Javier Licandro and Julia de León have already started to work in the calibration of this images in preparation for the ones that will be obtained in December 2018 using color filters.

The newly discovered binary system has one of the shortest orbital periods ever seen inside a planetary nebula. The findings of the study, led by the IAC and published in MNRAS letters, reveal that the interaction between the two stars could quickly lead to a nova explosion, something which is not predicted by theories of binary evolution.

This morning at a press conference at the IAC the latest study of the economic and social impact of the Astrophysics Sector in the Canaries was presented, carried out by a team from the University of La Laguna and directed by the economist Professor Juan José Díaz Hernández. The “Astrophysics Sector” in the Canaries comprises the IAC, the numerous scientific institutions from around the world who work at the Canary Observatories, by the related industry dedicated to the sector, and by the services related to these installations. After analyzing the activity of the sector in the Islands, Juan

This morning at a press conference at the IAC the latest study of the economic and social impact of the Astrophysics Sector in the Canaries was presented, carried out by a team from the University of La Laguna and directed by the economist Professor Juan José Díaz Hernández.

The IAC is organizing a conference in Tenerife about the first four years of Science with the Hertzsprung SONG telescope, the first in an international network, which was inaugurated at the Teide Observatory in October 2014.