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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  • Una imagen ilustrada de un púlsar viuda negra y su compañera estelar. Créditos: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Cruz deWilde
    Press release
    Astronomers discover a “black widow” binary star system with the shortest orbital period known
    The research, carried out by an international group incuding the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias(IAC) and the University of La Laguna (ULL) also show that the binary system has a third star orbiting it , and which could have originated from close to the centre of the Milky Way. While the Earth takes 365 days to complete its orbit round the Sun, the star which orbits the new found pulsar ZTF J1406+1222 does it in 62 minutes, which makes it a neutron star in a binary system termed a “black widow”, with the shortest period measured until now. These data were obtained using the ultra-high
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  • Rocky planets
    Press release
    Astronomers discover a four-planet system with a peculiar migration process
    An international research, in which the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) participates, has discovered a new planetary system comprised of 4 planets orbiting the star TOI-500. This is the first system known to host an Earth analogue with a period shorter than one day and 3 additional low-mass planets whose orbital configuration can be explained via a non-violent and smooth migration scenario. The study is published in the journal Nature Astronomy. The inner planet, dubbed TOI-500b, is a so-called ultra-short period (USP) planet, as its orbital period is only 13 hours. It is regarded
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  • Iglesia Camino de Santiago
    Press release
    The cultural and sky landscape of the Way of Saint James
    A study led by the researcher of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias Maitane Urrutia-Aparicio has shown the relevance of sunrise on Easter Sunday, one of the most important Christian festivities, in the orientation of Romanesque churches on the Camino de Santiago. This work exposes the close relationship between the sky and the orientation of the constructions of the Jacobean Route. It also shows that medieval societies already included temporal symbolism in the construction of their temples. The latest research results have been published in the journal Sustainability. "The main
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  • Spectra obtained with ESPRESSO, corresponding to three different transitions in an absorbing system at z=1.15 towards the quasar HE0515-4414, compared with previous spectra on the same object obtained with the UVES and HARPS spectrographs, at lower spectral resolution.
    Research news
    Testing fundamental physics with ESPRESSO
    Many of the most basic and important physical phenomena are determined by a set of “fundamental constants”, whose values are experimentally known to high accuracy. A key aspect is to know whether they are “universal constants”, i.e., whether they have always had the same value across the Universe and throughout its history . Here we made use of data from the ESPRESSO spectrograph on the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in order to determine the value of the fine structure constant 8 thousand million years ago (when the Universe was just 40% its current age) by measuring spectral transitions in a
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  • Visita de Carlos Torres
    Photomontage
    BBVA Foundation's president, Carlos Torres Vila, visits the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory
    The president of the BBVA Foundation, Carlos Torres Vila, visited the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (Garafía, La Palma) to learn about the work being done by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC). The most recent collaboration between the two institutions has been a research project led by astronomer Johan Knapen Koelstra and funded by the BBVA Foundation as part of its Programa de Ayudas a Equipos de Investigación en el área de Big Data. The president of the Foundation visited the GTC and the Cherenkov telescopes (MAGIC and LST), where he received explanations on the progress
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  • The left panel shows the young stellar population (YSP) distribution overlaid with contours showing the advancing side (blue) and receding side (red) of the outflow. The right panel shows the same but with contours of W80 (i.e. the width of the 5007 [OIII] line).
    Research news
    Evidence of the impact of quasar driven outflows on recent star formation
    We present the results of our spatially resolved investigation into the interplay between the ages of the stellar populations and the kinematics of the warm ionised outflows in the well-studied type II quasar Markarian 34. Utilising integral field spectroscopic (IFS) data, we determine the spatial distribution of the young stellar population (YSP; age < 100 Myr) using spectral synthesis modelling. We also employ the 5007 [OIII] emission line as a tracer of the warm ionised gas kinematics. We demonstrate a spatial correlation between the outer edges of the advancing side of the outflow and an
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