Father Juan Casanovas (1929-2013), a Jesuit astronomer who played an important role in the early years of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), has had his name given to asteroid (620307) Casanovas according to a recent announcement in the IAU Bulletin WGSBN. Father Casanovas joined the Observatorio del Teide, then recently created, in 1968, in which he founded the Solar Physics section, and pushed ahead with early testing campaigns which convinced the international scientific community of the excellence of Tenerife and La Palma for solar observations. Thanks to his knowledge of

ALISIO-1, el primer satélite propio del Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), ha iniciado su viaje al espacio este viernes, 1 de diciembre, a bordo de un cohete de SpaceX. El lanzamiento que ha tenido lugar a las 18:19 horas desde la Base Vandenberg de la Fuerza Aérea Estadounidense situada en California (EEUU), se ha desarrollado sin ningún contratiempo El presidente del Gobierno de Canarias, Fernando Clavijo, que ha presidido el lanzamiento del primer satélite canario, ha valorado el exitoso trabajo que viene realizando el Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias y ha dicho que “sitúa a

An international team of scientists, with participation by researchers at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), has discovered a very large, but thin, stream of stars in the Coma cluster of galaxies. This is the largest stream of stars detected until now, and the first to be found in a cluster of galaxies. This finding, which is published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, was made using observations taken with the William Herschel Telescope (WHT) at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (Garafía, La Palma, Canary Islands). The Coma Cluster is a large cluster of galaxies

An international collaboration, with participation by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), has found a system of six exoplanets orbiting a central star with a precise rhythm.This phenomenon, known as orbital resonance, is common during the starting phase of planet formation, but it is exceptional to find a system with such a large set of planets which conserves this kind of gravitational synchronism. This finding shows that the system has not undergone major changes during its six billion year history, so that it gives an unusual view of the formation and evolution of planets. The

The XXXIV Canary Islands Winter School of Astrophysics closed last Thursday, November 16, with the visit to the facilities of the Obervatorio del Teide. For two weeks, 54 graduate students from 15 countries attended the IACTEC building to learn about the latest developments in the field of galaxy evolution and the Local Group. Currently, astrophysics field is receiving a big amount of data available for research due to the Gaia Mission and several spectroscopic surveys from Earth in which the IAC has a large participation. The organization highlights the great enthusiasm, the good atmosphere