The Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands, IAC, and specifically its technology transfer division IACTEC, has a long history of participation in free-space optical communications projects (FSOC). These activities are nowadays being pushed forward to achieve practical applications of quantum key distribution, leveraging its facilities and

Aims: As a part of the project aiming to build a homogeneous sample of binary-lens (2L1S) events containing brown dwarf (BD) companions, we investigate the 2021 season microlensing data collected by the Korea Microlensing Telescope Network (KMTNet) survey. Methods: For this purpose, we first identified 2L1S events by conducting systematic analyses

During the first 500 million years of cosmic history, the first stars and galaxies formed, seeding the Universe with heavy elements and eventually reionizing the intergalactic medium 1-3. Observations with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have uncovered a surprisingly high abundance of candidates for early star-forming galaxies, with distances

Probing the magnetic nature of the Sun's chromosphere requires measurement of the polarization profiles of relevant magnetically sensitive spectral lines, many of which are in the ultraviolet spectrum, necessitating observations above the absorbing terrestrial atmosphere. The CLASP series of sounding rocket missions were designed to develop and

When galactic discs settle and become massive enough, they are able to form stellar bars. These non-axisymmetric structures induce shocks in the gas, causing it to flow to the centre where nuclear structures, such as nuclear discs and rings, are formed. Previous theoretical and observational studies have hinted at the co-evolution of bars and

Delta (δ) sunspots sometimes host fast photospheric flows along the central magnetic polarity inversion line (PIL). Here we study the strong Doppler shift signature in the δ-penumbral light bridge of solar active region NOAA 12673. Observations from the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) indicate highly sheared, strong magnetic fields. Large