The distribution of planets in the over five thousand distant solar systems discovered to date forms a complex puzzle. There is a region in the planetary orbit graph, known as the " Neptunian desert", where very few Neptune-like planets with orbits of between two and four days period around their star have been recorded to date. Now, a scientific team led by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía-Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (IAA-CSIC) , using a novel technique, new planets around red dwarf stars located precisely in

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

The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) is demonstrating the quality and international relevance of the Canary Islands Observatories at the 245th session of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting being held this week in Maryland (USA). This meeting, led by the American astrophysics community, brings together the world's most important research centres in this field to share lines of work and proposals for the present and the future. The IAC delegation in Maryland is headed by the director of the centre, Valentín Martínez Pillet, who is part of the panel of speakers with a