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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  • A diagram of how Rydberg Enhanced Recombination works. Adapted from Nemer et al. (2019).
    Research news
    Confirming new physics in space
    The interstellar medium is an excellent laboratory to test physical processes that cannot be reproduced in Earth-based laboratories. In this study several nebulae were used as a space laboratory to confirm the existence of an atomic process for which there was no previous experimental confirmation. In 2010, the existence of an atomic process that should occur frequently in astrophysical plasmas throughout the universe was theoretically proposed. The point is that this process — which is termed Rydberg Enhanced Recombination, or RER — had never before been detected, and it’s effectively
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  • Artistic image of the supernova explosions of the first massive stars that formed in the Milky Way. The star J0815+4729 was formed from the material ejected by these first supernovae
    Press release
    Astronomers detect large amounts of oxygen in the atmosphere of a primitive star
    Scientists from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), in collaboration with the University of Cambridge and the University of California San Diego, detect large amounts of oxygen in the atmosphere of the "primitive star" called J0815+4729. This finding, reported in the journal The Astrophysical Journal Letters today, provides an important clue on how oxygen and other chemical elements were produced in the first generations of stars in the Universe. Oxygen is the third most abundant element in the Universe after hydrogen and helium. It is essential for all forms of life on Earth
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  • A snapshot from TESS of part of the southern sky showing the location of ν Indi
    Press release
    TESS satellite dates an ancient collision with our galaxy
    From a single bright star in the constellation of Indus, an international team of scientists led by the University of Birmingham, with the participation of scientists from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), has revealed new insights about an ancient collision between our galaxy, the Milky Way, and another smaller galaxy called Gaia-Enceladus, early in its history. Nature Astronomy publishes these results today. This team adopted the novel approach of applying the forensic characterisation of a single ancient, bright star called ν Indi, visible from the southern hemisphere, as a
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