Galaxy-cluster gravitational lenses can magnify background galaxies by a total factor of up to ~50. Here we report an image of an individual star at redshift z = 1.49 (dubbed MACS J1149 Lensed Star 1) magnified by more than ×2,000. A separate image, detected briefly 0.26″ from Lensed Star 1, is probably a counterimage of the first star demagnified for multiple years by an object of ≳3 solar masses in the cluster. For reasonable assumptions about the lensing system, microlensing fluctuations in the stars’ light curves can yield evidence about the mass function of intracluster stars and

Researchers at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) confirm the first detection of a relic galaxy with the Hubble Space Telescope. The results of this research are published today in Nature magazine.

A new study published in the Astrophysical Journal by Hector Socas-Navarro, a researcher at the IAC, examines the possibility of detecting hypothetical artificial satellites orbiting around other worlds.

An international team in which researchers from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and the Universidad de La Laguna (ULL) are participating, observes how the magnetic waves which propagate through the solar atmosphere heat its outer layers. The results of this research are published today in the magazine Nature Physics.

We present a photometric detection of the first brightness dips of the unique variable star KIC 8462852 since the end of the Kepler space mission in 2013 May. Our regular photometric surveillance started in 2015 October, and a sequence of dipping began in 2017 May continuing on through the end of 2017, when the star was no longer visible from Earth. We distinguish four main 1%–2.5% dips, named “Elsie,” “Celeste,” “Skara Brae,” and “Angkor,” which persist on timescales from several days to weeks. Our main results so far are as follows: (i) there are no apparent changes of the stellar spectrum

Galaxy formation entails the hierarchical assembly of mass, along with the condensation of baryons and the ensuing, self-regulating star formation. The stars form a collisionless system whose orbit distribution retains dynamical memory that can constrain a galaxy's formation history. The ordered-rotation dominated orbits with near maximum circularity λz≃1 and the random-motion dominated orbits with low circularity λz≃0 are called kinematically cold and kinematically hot, respectively. The fraction of stars on `cold' orbits, compared to the fraction of stars on `hot' orbits, speaks directly