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.

  • Jet blowing bubbles in the Teacup galaxy
    A study led by Anelise Audibert, a researcher at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), reveals a process that explains the peculiar morphology of the central region of the Teacup galaxy, a massive quasar located 1.3 billion light-years away from us. This object is characterized by the presence of expanding gas bubbles produced by winds emanating from its central supermassive black hole. The study confirms that a compact jet, only visible at radio waves, is altering the shape and increasing the temperature of the surrounding gas, blowing bubbles that expand laterally. These findings
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  • ExoLife Finder (ELF)
    From 13th to 17th of February, in IACTEC, the technical collaboration zone of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, the first scientific meeting of the Laboratory for Innovation in Optomechanics (LIOM) is taking place. This is a project for the development of new optical and mechanical technology which will form part of the next generaton of telescopes, such as the ExoLife Finder (ELF), aimed at the search for life outside the Solar System. The meeting has brought together 30 specialists in optics and photonics from Europe, Canada, and the United States. During the course of this week
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  • Low iron binary recreation
    The nearly primordial origin of an ancient star of the Milky Way confirmed by an international team of researchers thanks to the ESPRESSO spectrograph. Stars with very low content of chemical elements are considered to be the older stars in the Milky Way. Formed a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, a very small time compared to the age of the Universe, these stars are real fossils which encode the first phases of the chemical evolution of the Universe in their atmosphere. The star SMSS1605-1443, discovered in 2018, was identified as one of the earliest stars in the galaxy, but its
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  • Low iron binary recreation
    An international team of researchers, among them scientists from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), has confirmed the primitive origen of an old star in the Milky Way, using the ESPRESSO instrument. The stars with the least content of metals are considered to be the oldest in the Milky Way, formed only a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, which is a small fraction of the age of the universe. These stars are “living fossils” whose chemical composition gives clues about the first stages of the evolution of the universe. The star SMSS1605-1443 was discovered in 2018 and
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  • Lanzamiento de DRAGO2
    The infrared camera DRAGO-2, developed by the team at IACTEC-Space and integrated into the satellite carrier ION-scv007 Glorious Gratia of the Italian company D-Orbit is now in orbit around the Earth after its successful launch yesterday on board a Falcon 9 rocket of Space-X. The Transporter-6 mission of SpaceX lifted off without a hitch at 14: 56 UT from platform 40 of the Space Force Station at Cape Canaveral, Florida (USA). Yesterday afternoon students, families, the media and IACTEC personnel were in the viewing room which had been installed in the multi-use area of IACTEC in the
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  • HUC and IAC Collaboration
    The Anatomical Pathology service of the Complejo Hospitalario Universitario de Canarias (HUC) and the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) are partners in the development of a computer application adapting artificial intelligence tools used in astronomy to digitised images of human tissue. The project, called “Patolog-IA”, aims to speed up the interpretation of test results and the diagnosis of colorectal cancer. It is expected that it will also be useful for personalised medicine oriented to other kinds of cancer. Colorectal cancer is one of the most aggressive types of cancer and the
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