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.

  • It will be its closest approach to the Earth (its perigee), at a distance of around 107 million kilometres, which is very close, considering that it originated in the Oort Cloud, at a distance from us of about a light year (some 9.5 billion kilometres). Although on those nights it will attain maximum brightness, it has not been as bright as was expected, so that it is not easy to find it with the naked eye. So binoculars are necessary, and a sky map, and we need to be at a place with dark sky to see the central zone of the comet. In spite of that it can be found near the Great Bear, and this
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  • El presidente del Gobierno de Canarias visita el IAC Hoy, viernes 8 de enero, el presidente del Gobierno de Canarias, Fernando Clavijo, ha visitado la sede del Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), en La Laguna, para reunirse personalmente con el Director del centro, Rafael Rebolo, y conocer de primera mano los proyectos en los que está involucrado el Instituto. En dicho encuentro, se le han planteado distintos asuntos que conciernen al estado actual del IAC, como el progreso de su plan estratégico y el de las grandes instalaciones telescópicas para los Observatorios de Canarias
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  • Strength of the large-scale magnetic field in nearby galaxies vs. their rotation speed.
    Magnetic fields are present on all scales in the Universe from planets and stars to galaxies and galaxy clusters, and even at high redshifts. They are important for the continuation of life on the Earth, the onset of star formation, the order of the interstellar medium, and the evolution of galaxies. Hence, understanding the Universe without understanding magnetic fields is impossible. The origin and evolution of cosmic magnetic fields is among the most pressing questions in modern astronomy. The most widely accepted theory to explain the magnetic fields on stars and planets is the α-Ω
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  • Oxygen and chlorine abundances in low-mass planetary nebulae (PNe) (black dots, from Delgado-Inglada et al. 2015) versus the new AGB model predictions for different masses (a few relevant masses are marked) and metallicities. The new models predict that O
    Recently, Delgado-Inglada and collaborators have shown that low-mass (between one and three times the mass of the Sun) planetary nebulae are rich in oxygen, but the standard theoretical models do not predict this. In this work we explain this phenomenon for the first time using theoretical models of nucleosynthesis (production of chemical elements in the interiors of stars) in their precursor AGB stars, which include convective processes, (which transport chemical elements created in the interior to the surface of the star) more efficient than in the standard models. This discovery calls
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  • Edge-on I-band images for the flared and non-flared models. Intermediate panels: The same for the face-on discs. Bottom panels: Surface brightness profiles in the major axis of the galaxy for edge-on (left) and the face-on (right) views of the two models
    Previous numerical studies had apparently ruled out the possibility that flares in galaxy discs could give rise to the apparent breaks in their luminosity profiles when observed edge-on. However the studies have not, until now, analysed this hypothesis systematically using realistic models for the disc, the flare, and the bulge. We revisit this theme by analysing a series of models which sample a wide range of observationally based structural parameters for these three components. Using observational data, we have considered realistic distributions of bulge-to-disc ratios, morphological
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