The Director of the Starlight Foundation, and researcher at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias Antonia M. Varela Pérez has contributed to a monographic edition of the prestigious journal Science dedicated to light pollution and its consequences. The starry sky has been a source of inspiration throughout human history. Astronomy has been a common element in all cultures and civilizations, and has been used to establish calendars, to navigate and discover new lands, and to drive many scientific and technical advances. The article “The increasing effects of light pollution on professional
International research, with the participation of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), reveals that perturbations in the magnetic fields of galaxies may be related to star formation. The study has mapped the magnetic fields of about fifteen galaxies in the vicinity of the Milky Way. The data were obtained with the HAWC+ instrument on board SOFIA, an airborne infrared telescope on a Boeing 747 that was operational until September 2022. The results are published in The Astrophysical Journal. For decades, astronomers have studied the forces that govern the interior of galaxies -
An international research team, led from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and the University of La Laguna (ULL) together with a group of Italian universities, has confirmed a new method for finding protoclusters of galaxies, the largest structures in the early universe. These progenitors of present-day clusters of galaxies played an essential role in the evolution of the universe, but are not easy to find. This study shows that a specific type of galaxies, those which emit radiation at submillimetre wavelengths, are very good indicators of the presence of distant protoclusters