This is the third “mini-Moon” with lunar-like material identified as part of the Arjuna asteroid belt, where objects follow similar orbits around the Sun to that of the Earth-Moon system. IAC, February 6, 2025. – Near-Earth asteroid 2024 PT5 orbits around the Sun following a trajectory very similar to that of the Earth-Moon system, and during two months of 2024, it accompained our Earth on its journey. This asteroid has material on its surface that was originated in the Moon, as it has been proved by a research led by the Insituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and the Universidad

An international research, in which the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) has played a leading role, has found a planet of intermediate size between Earth and Venus orbiting a cool red dwarf 40 light-years away. The new world, named Gliese 12 b, lies within the habitable zone of its star, making it a promising candidate for the James Webb Space Telescope to study its atmosphere. The discovery was made possible thanks to observations from NASA's TESS satellite and other facilities such as CARMENES, at Calar Alto Observatory (CAHA), and MuSCAT2, installed at the Carlos Sánchez

At the present time ground-based observatories have a wide range of instruments which can study the solar surface in the visible and infrared ranges. But it is not possible to combine these observations with those in the near ultraviolet, which cover the wavelength range from 200 to 400 nanometres, nor to maintain them for long periods due to the turbulence in the Earth’s atmosphere. In this context, the Sunrise III mission, in which the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) is collaborating, “ has become the first observatory to obtain spectropolarimetric data simultaneously in the