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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  • Winds launched by a supermassive black hole impact the formation of new stars in the galaxy Markarian 34
    Press release
    Caught in the act: the winds driven by supermassive black holes directly impact star formation
    Patricia Bessiere, a researcher at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), has led research which has used data from the KECK telescope in Hawaii to understand the impact that active galactic nuclei have on star formation in their host galaxies. The results are published today in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters. One of the key questions that astronomers are trying to answer is ‘Why do galaxies look the way they do?’. Computer simulations of how galaxies formed and evolved suggest that there should be many more very large galaxies than we actually
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  • Artist's impression of the X-ray binary Swift J1858.6-0814. We can see how the neutron star accretes material, via an accretion disk, from the companion star, and how some of that material is ejected in the form of a warm wind. Credits: Gabriel Pérez Díaz, SMM (IAC).
    Research news
    An ultraviolet wind in a neutron star X-ray binary transient
    All disc-accreting astrophysical objects produce powerful disc winds. In compact binaries containing neutron stars or black holes, accretion often takes place during violent outbursts. The main disc wind signatures during these eruptions are blue-shifted X-ray absorption lines, which are preferentially seen in disc-dominated ‘soft states’. By contrast, optical wind-formed lines have recently been detected in ‘hard states’, when a hot corona dominates the luminosity. The relationship between these signatures is unknown, and no erupting system has as yet revealed wind-formed lines between the
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  • Infrared image of the galaxy Messier 87. The luminous point in its center indicates the position of its black hole, one of the most massive known, one billion times the mass of our Sun. Image taken with the VLT telescope and its adaptive optics system at the ESO observatory in Chile.
    Research news
    A novel black hole mass scaling relation
    The confirmation of the existence of black holes is one of the most basic results in astrophysics. There is a wide range of masses of black holes, from those with stellar mass, which are the result of the catastrophic final phase of very massive stars, to the supermassive black holes at the centres of most galaxies. The mass of a black hole is up to now the only parameter which scientists are able to measure. In this work, we present an original method for measuring the masses of black holes, from those of stellar mass to the supermassive variety, based on a simple measurement of the
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  • Normalized spectra of the GTC-1 (blue) and GTC-2 epochs (black), both centred at Hα. Telluric bands and diffuse interstellar bands, as well as reference velocities (1000 km/s and 1250 km/s) have been marked to highlight the blue-shifted absorption produced by the wind.
    Research news
    A cold wind during the discovery outburst of a black hole
    We present 12 epochs of optical spectroscopy taken across the discovery outburst of the black hole (BH) candidate MAXI J1803-298 with the Gran Telescopio Canarias and Very Large Telescope. The source followed a standard outburst evolution. This means it passed through the so-called "hard" and "soft" states, defined in terms of the relative contribution of high to low energy X-rays. The system displays a "triangular" shape in the hardness intensity diagram, consistent with that seen in high-inclination BH transients and the previously reported detection of X-ray dips. The two epochs observed
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  • Comparison of black holes by mass and temperature
    Press release
    Astronomers develop new method for taking the temperature of black holes
    An international research team led by researchers at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) has found a new method for measuring the masses of black holes based on the temperature of the gas which surrounds them when they are active. The results of the work have recently been published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS). The confirmation of the existence of black holes is one of the most basic results in astrophysics. There is a wide range of masses of black holes, from stellar-mass black holes, which are the result of the catastrophic final
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  • Black hole simulation
    Press release
    Powerful warm winds discovered during a neutron star eruption
    An international team of astronomers, including researchers from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), has discovered blasts of hot, warm and cold winds from a neutron star consuming matter from a nearby star. The study used a combination of observations made with several telescopes, including the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC or Grantecan), located at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (Garafía, La Palma). The discovery, published today in the journal Nature, provides new insight into the behaviour of some of the most extreme objects in the Universe. Low-mass X-ray binaries
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