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.

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  • Artistic impression of the Proxima Centauri system, with the planets Proxima b and Proxima d, the latter confirmed by NIRPS
    Press release
    The IAC leads the first scientific results of NIRPS, the new infrared exoplanet hunter
    The new infrared spectrograph NIRPS, built with the participation of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and installed on the 3.6-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile, has achieved its first scientific results, with four articles published today in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics and one more accepted for publication. The data confirm its ability to detect Earth-like planets in the infrared for the first time with a precision better than one metre per second. One of the papers, led by IAC researcher Alejandro Suárez Mascareño, confirms the presence of a
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  • El director del Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, durante el acto de conmemoración del 40 Aniversario / IAC
    El IAC dedica su 40 aniversario a todas las personas que han trabajado para ‘soñar estrellas’
    El Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) ha celebrado, este jueves 24 de julio de 2025, el 40 aniversario de la inauguración oficial de su sede central y de sus dos observatorios. Un acto que ha estado centrado en destacar el trabajo de los cientos de personas que han contribuido a convertir el IAC en uno de los centros de excelencia investigadora y técnica más importantes del mundo. En el acto, el director fundador del IAC, Francisco Sánchez, ha tenido un papel fundamental pese a que sus problemas de salud no le hayan permitido participar en el mismo. El lema de este 40 aniversario ha
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  • La ministra Diana Morant junto al director del CDTI, José Moisés Martín; el director del IAC, Valentín Martínez; la subdirectora del IAC, Eva Villaver y la Secretaria General de Innovación, Teresa Riesgo.
    La ministra de Ciencia anuncia en el Consejo Rector del IAC que el Gobierno de España ofrece hasta 400 millones de euros para construir en La Palma el TMT
    La ministra de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, Diana Morant, ha anunciado que el Gobierno de España está dispuesto a ofrecer hasta 400 millones de euros, a través del Centro para el Desarrollo Tecnológico y la Innovación (CDTI), para atraer a la isla de La Palma, en Canarias, el Telescopio de Treinta Metros (TMT, por sus siglas en inglés). La ministra lo ha anunciado durante la reunión del Consejo Rector del Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), que ha presidido hoy en La Palma, donde ha informado que esta tarde ha remitido una propuesta formal a la Fundación que gestiona el TMT
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  • An artist's impression of a gamma-ray burst (GRB)
    Press release
    The LST-1 at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory provides new clues about gamma-ray bursts jets
    The international CTAO LST Collaboration , in which the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) plays a prominent role, released remarkable findings from observations of GRB 221009A—the brightest gamma-ray burst (GRB) ever recorded. The results were published by the renowned journal The Astrophysical Journal Letters (ApJ Letters) . The publication presents in-depth observations conducted in 2022 with the Large-Sized Telescope (LST ) prototype, the LST-1, during its commissioning phase at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (ORM) on the CTAO-North site in La Palma, Spain. The
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  • fexiii_Pcorona
    Research news
    P-CORONA: A New Tool for Calculating the Intensity and Polarization of Coronal Lines in 3D Models of the Solar Corona
    The solar corona—the outermost layer of the Sun’s atmosphere—is extremely hot and very low in density. One of the main challenges in solar physics is understanding why the corona reaches temperatures of over a million degrees. This heating is believed to be closely related to the Sun’s magnetic field. However, quantifying the coronal magnetic field is difficult because the light emitted by the corona is extremely faint, and its polarization signals, which encode the information on the magnetic field, are subtle. Thanks to recent advances in technology, telescopes like the Daniel K. Inouye
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