Researchers at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and the University of Cambridge have detected lithium in a primitive star in our galaxy. The observations were made at the VLT, at the Paranal Observatory of ESO in Chile.

The Gran Telescopio Canarias today inaugurates its website grantecan.es which will communicate the telescope with the wide public during its observing nights. Furthermore this coming Saturday, March 9th, there will be the first of a series of broadcasts in real time from GRANTECAN during which it will be possible to talk to the professional astronomers and ask them questions. This initiative is co-financed by the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT) of the Ministry of Science, Innovation, and Universities.

The result of an agreement signed between the “La Caixa” foundation, the CajaCanaris Foundation and the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) is that the IAC will train four young people in their workshops and observatories.

Casiana, an astrophysicist expert in galaxies, and Principal Investigator of the international collaboration ESTALLIDOS, will also lead the Sky Quality Group of the Canary Island Observatories. She succeeds the astrophysicist Carlos Martínez Roger who recently retired.

The best time to observe the first meteor shower of 2019 will be the night of January 3rd to 4th. The astronomical event will be broadcast live from the Observatorio del Teide (Tenerife) and Higuera la Real (Badajoz), with the collaboration of the European STARS4ALL project and the initiative promoted by the Junta de Extremadura, "Extremadura, Buenas Noches".

The Gran Telescopio Canarias(GTC), on the point of completing 10 years of scientific operation, is still the largest optical and infrared telescope in the world. This status will be maintained until at least 2025 when the new generation of very large telescopes will start operating. The astrophyisicist Romano Corradi, its director since 2016 and an expert in planetary nebulae, gave a review of the present and future of this “singular infrastructure” during the VI Conference on Science with the GTC, which was held in Valencia.