Ideas for future NASA missions searching for extraterrestrial civilizations
A researcher at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) is the lead author of a study with proposals for “technosignatures” -evidence for the use of...
Images from the Hubble Space Telescope and GRANTECAN help to show how the first galaxies were formed
One of the most interesting questions for astrophysicists for the past few decades is how and when did the first galaxies form. One of the possible answers to...
Initiation of LIOM, the IAC Laboratory for Innovation in Optomechanics
From 13th to 17th of February, in IACTEC, the technical collaboration zone of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, the first scientific meeting of the...
Intracluster light: a luminous tracer for dark matter in clusters of galaxies
The bulk of stars in galaxy clusters are confined within their constituent galaxies. Those stars do not trace the extended distribution of dark matter well as...
IRSOL and IAC scientists solve a complex paradox in solar physics
In 1998, the journal Nature published a seminal letter concluding that the mysterious polarization signal that had been recently discovered in the light emitted...
Is the Large Magellanic Cloud spiral arm a stable structure?
Some galaxies in the Universe display beautiful and appealing features known as "spiral arms". However, not all galaxies show spiral arms in the same manner...
La directora general, quien midió hace unos años el impacto social y económico de la Gran Ciencia (Big Science), destacó el ambicioso Plan Estratégico del IAC...
James Webb Telescope reveals the possible origin of the mysterious shapes in the Southern Ring Nebula
The first data show there were at least two, and possibly three, more unseen stars that crafted the oblong, curvy shapes of the Southern Ring Nebula. In...