The researcher Valentín Martínez Pillet has taken up his duties as Director of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) today, Monday 1st July, in a ceremony with the participation of the Secretary General for Research of the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities Eva Ortega-Paíno, and the outgoing Director of the IAC, Rafael Rebolo. The new Director of the IAC, Valentín Martínez Pillet, takes up the challenge of running the centre in which he is a Research Professor with “a great sense of responsibility” and with the aim of mainaining and enhancing its scientific and

En 2025, el Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) celebra el cuarenta aniversario de su inauguración oficial en 1985, consolidándose como uno de los principales centros de investigación de Astrofísica a nivel internacional.

The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) is one of the international researches centres which is following actively the asteroid 2024 YR4 which has been qualified by the United Nations (UN) as potentially dangerous, because it has a 1.5% probability of impacting the Earth during 2032.The asteroid was discovered in 2024 and has an estimated size of between 40 and 90 metres. Given these figures, the UN has activated the protocols of planetary defence to obtain more accurate estimates of the orbit, the size and the threat which might be presented by 2024 YR4. The protocols of the UN are