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.

  • The M31 Galaxy, more commonly known as the Andromeda Galaxy, is a spiral galaxy situated some 2- 2.5 million light years from us in the direction of the constellation of Andromeda. Credits: Adam Evans/wikipedia.
    The discovery of metal-rich planetary nebulae in the outer regions of the Andromeda Galaxy, using data from the GTC, gives evidence of a possible encounter between galaxies
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  • Figure caption: Left : (FUV − NUV) versus (NUV − [3.6]) color-color diagram. Morphological types are represented by color (see legend). We define the blue and red sequence by dividing the plot into two regions and fitting a least-squares 1-D polynomial (a
    We obtained GALEX FUV, NUV, and Spitzer/IRAC 3.6 µm photometry for >2000 galaxies, available for 90% of the S4G sample. We find a very tight "GALEX Blue Sequence (GBS)" in the (FUV − NUV) versus (NUV − [3.6]) color-color diagram which is populated by irregular and spiral galaxies, and is mainly driven by changes in the formation timescale (τ ) and a degeneracy between τ and dust reddening. The tightness of the GBS provides an unprecedented way of identifying starforming galaxies and objects that are just evolving to (or from) what we call the "GALEX Green Valley (GGV)". At the red end of the
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  • Figure caption: Profiles of the broad 4428 Å band (left panel) and of the 5780 Å feature (right panel) towards Tc 1 central star (black) and average of two sight lines to the nebular position on either side of the nebula. In both panels, the dashed blue l
    Identification of the carriers of the diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs) has been very elusive since the beginning of the last century. Differentcomplex carbon-based molecules - e.g., carbon chains, polycyclicaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and fullerenes - have been proposed asDIB's carriers. If the DIBs arise from large gas phase molecules, such as PAHs and fullerenes, then they are also expected to be present in other carbon-rich space environments like circumstellar shells around evolved stars. Diffuse circumstellar bands (DCBs) in absorption have been unsuccessfully studied for more than
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