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
  • Garik Israelian and Rafael Rebolo
    Photomontage
    Starmus premieres documentary and announces a special edition of the festival on La Palma
    La Palma will host a new edition of Starmus in 2024, according to Rafael Rebolo, director of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), and Garik Israelian, co-director of the festival and astrophysicist, at a press conference held at the IAC headquarters in La Laguna. "We are working to make this a reality and the way we have found is to relate it to the protection of the sky as an asset of humanity, which is why we will go hand in hand with the Starlight Foundation. There is still time to make society aware of the pollution of our sky, especially with the launch of small satellites
    Advertised on
  • International Scientific Committee (CCI) of the Canary Islands Observatories
    Photomontage
    Meeting in La Palma of the International Scientific Committee of the Canary Islands Observatories
    Members of the different institutions that make up the International Scientific Committee (CCI) of the Canary Islands Observatories met last Tuesday, 31 October, in the island of La Palma. The meeting was attended by Rafael Rebolo, Director of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), and Casiana Múñoz, Deputy Director of the IAC. The CCI is the committee created in the International Agreements that established the Canary Islands Observatories for an effective participation of the User Institutions in the adoption of decisions related to the use and improvement of the observatories
    Advertised on
  • Representation of the ALISIO-1 satellite. Credit: IACTEC-Space.
    Press release
    The countdown for the launch of ALISIO-1 has begun
    The first Canary Earth Observation Satellite, belonging to the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), has successfully passed all the pre-launch technical tests, and is on the way to the United States for launch from California before the end of the year. ALISIO-1 ( Advanced Land-Imaging Satellite for Infrared Observations) is the first Canary satellite which will orbit the Earth, in the framework of the ALISIO space programme, led by the IAC and coordinated by the IACTEC-Space group. In 2018, the team gained its first success after the launch of an atmospheric sounding balloon with
    Advertised on
  • Mapa interactivo contaminación lumínica EELabs
    Photomontage
    Un mapa para recuperar la noche
    La Universidad de las Palmas de Gran Canaria y el Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias han desarrollado un método para calibrar imágenes nocturnas de satélites a partir de medidas de redes de fotómetros nocturnos. El trabajo, financiado por el proyecto Interreg EELabs, está orientado a evaluar de forma más precisa la contaminación lumínica y su impacto en los ecosistemas naturales de la Macaronesia. Los datos están a disposición de la comunidad científica a través del portal del proyecto. Desde su inicio en 2020, el proyecto Interreg EELabs ha desplegado más de un centenar de sensores en las
    Advertised on
  • Photomontage
    William Herschel Telescope inaugurates its new WEAVE spectrograph
    Yesterday, 30 October 2023, from the telescope itself at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on the island of La Palma, the WEAVE instrument, a powerful state-of-the-art multi-fibre spectrograph, was publicly unveiled. The inauguration ceremony brought to La Palma the leaders of the science funding agencies from the partner countries of the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes (ING), as well as a strong representation from the 500 members of the science teams and the organisations involved in the design and construction of WEAVE, making it the largest ever gathering of people inside the dome
    Advertised on
  • accretion_disks_pulses
    Research news
    A shared accretion instability for black holes and neutron stars
    Accretion disks around compact objects are expected to enter an unstable phase at high luminosity. One instability may occur when the radiation pressure generated by accretion modifies the disk viscosity, resulting in the cyclic depletion and refilling of the inner disk on short timescales. Such a scenario, however, has only been quantitatively verified for a single stellar-mass black hole. Although there are hints of these cycles in a few isolated cases, their apparent absence in the variable emission of most bright accreting neutron stars and black holes has been a continuing puzzle. Here
    Advertised on