News

This section includes scientific and technological news from the IAC and its Observatories, as well as press releases on scientific and technological results, astronomical events, educational projects, outreach activities and institutional events.

  • Rare pair of interacting dwarf galaxies observed by the CAVITY project
    An international team of researchers, including researchers from the IAC, have studied in detail a remarkable couple of dwarf galaxies “dancing with each other” inside an unpopulated area of the Universe. This uncommon pair of low-mass galaxies merging “in the middle of nowhere”, near the center of a cosmic void, offers a unique view of one-on-one interactions and of the evolution of galaxies located in very low density environments. Researchers from the Calar Alto Void Integral-field Treasury surveY (CAVITY) project, led by the University of Granada, have discovered a rare and ongoing
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  • Participantes a la la segunda reunión de los grandes observatorios astronómicos de España celebrada en Granada
    Del 10 al 13 de junio, las principales instalaciones astronómicas de España se dan cita en Granada para compartir conocimientos, tecnologías y estrategias de colaboración. Bajo el lema “Promoviendo sinergias entre grandes observatorios españoles”, este encuentro reúne a cerca de un centenar de expertos en tecnología, ingeniería y gestión que trabajan en las Infraestructuras Científicas y Técnicas Singulares (ICTS) en astronomía del país. El objetivo de esta segunda edición es consolidar los vínculos creados en la primera reunión, celebrada en La Palma en 2023, y seguir avanzando en
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  • Dr. Holly Gilbert at the inaugural Irene Gonzalez Hernandez Solar Physics Prize Ceremony in Anchorage, Alaska.
    The award, instituted in honour of Canary Island scientist Irene González Hernández, recognises excellence in solar research and scientific leadership. The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) celebrates the awarding of the inaugural Irene González Hernández prize to Dr. Holly R. Gilbert, director of the High Altitude Observatory (HAO) of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) of the US National Science Foundation. The award was presented at the 56th meeting of the Solar Physics Division (SPD) of the American Astronomical Society (AAS), held jointly with the AAS and the
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  • Attendees at Our Science Day 2025
    The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) today held the 16th edition of the ‘Our Science Day’, an annual internal event which brought together its research and technical staff at the IACTEC headquarters in La Laguna. This meeting has established itself as a space for sharing the most outstanding advances of the past year in the different areas of work of the centre, promoting collaboration, cohesion and the exchange of ideas between teams. The conference was opened by the director of the IAC, Valentín Martínez Pillet, who presented an analysis of the centre's situation. The director
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  • Nine galaxies taken from over 700,000 spanning all of cosmic time, from upper left to lower right: the present day universe, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 billion years ago
    The largest observation program of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has released its data: nearly 800,000 galaxies observed in unprecedented detail. COSMOS-Web thus offers the most extensive and deepest view of the universe ever obtained. In this data release, the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) has played a key role, performing the morphological classification of more than half a million galaxies using neural networks, a crucial contribution to explore how galaxies form and evolve over cosmic time. COSMOS-Web was the largest General Observer program selected for Cycle 1 of
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  • Imagen del sistema TOI-6894 / IAC
    An international team of astronomers, including researchers from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), the University of Liège and collaborators in UK, Chile, the USA, and Europe, has discovered a transiting giant planet orbiting the smallest known star to host such a companion — a finding that defies current theories of planet formation. The host star, TOI-6894 , is a red dwarf with only 20% the mass of the Sun , typical of the most common stars in our galaxy. Until now, such low-mass stars were not thought capable of forming or retaining giant planets. But as published today in
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