A study led by researchers at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), making comparison between the discs of several pairs of spiral galaxies, active and non-active, concludes that in the discs of the former the rotational motion of the stars is of greater importance. This study, just accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics Letters, is the first evidence for large scale dynamical differences between active and non-active galaxies in the local universe. The astronomers participating are from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and the University of La Laguna

A Master’s degree research project at the University of Barcelona (UB), carried out at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) by the student Alejandra Yrupe Fresco, currently studying for her doctorate at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, in Germany, has revealed the faint nucleus and the structure of the jet of particles in the nuclear region of M87, the brightest galaxy in the Virgo cluster. This project was carried out in collaboration with the IAC researchers Juan Antonio Fernández Ontiveros, Almudena Prieto and José Antonio Acosta Pulido, and was possible

To celebrate Asteroid Day, which commemorates the impact of the Tunguska Fireball in 1908, several researchers from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) will participate in on-line chats to talk about the nature of these lesser bodies of the Solar System, and about the risk of impact on the Earth.

The exoplanets closest to us offer the best opportunities to make a detailed study of their physical properties, including the search for life outside the Solar System. In research led by the University of Göttingen (Germany), in which the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias and the University of La Laguna (ULL) are participants, has detected a system of superearths in orbit round the nearby star Gliese 887 (GJ 887), the brightest red dwarf in the sky. The results are published today in the journal Science. Superearths are planets with a larger mass than the Earth, but substancially less

An international team of scientists, with the participation of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), has discovered a planet of the size of Neptune orbiting in rather more than a week around AU Microscopii, a young star a little over of 30 light years away, and surrounded by a disc of debris left over from its formation. The data were obtained with NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and the Spitzer Space Telescope (now retired from service). The Discovery is published today in Nature magazine. The finding in this system, abbreviated as AU Mic, will be a unique