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.

List view
  • Artist’s impression of the accoustic oscillations of normal (“baryonic”) matter, taken from one of thousands of simulations used in the study/ Francisco-Shu Kitaura & Francesco Sinigaglia
    Press release
    The light from quasars, a key to the measurement of the expansion of the distant universe
    The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) in collaboration with the University of Geneva (Switzerland), the University of Osaka (Japan), and the University of Zhejiang (China) has made a key contribution to a more precise measurement of the expansion of the Universe. This is because they have made an improvement in the precision of the calculation of the scale of the universe in its early stages using the analisis of the distribution of gas in intergalactic space, measurements which reach back to epochs between 10,000 and 12,000 million years ago. This result comes from the análisis of
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  • Action space (normalized to the sum of the three actions of motion, Jtot) of Gaia RVS stars
    Research news
    The Metal-Poor Edge of the Milky Way’s Thin Disk
    The formation and evolution of the disk of our Galaxy, the Milky Way, remains an enigma in astronomy. In particular, the relationship between the thick disk and the thin disk —two key components of the Milky Way— is still unclear. Understanding the chemical and dynamical properties of the stars within these disks is crucial, especially in the parameter spaces where their characteristics overlap, such the metallicity regime around [Fe/H] ~ -0.7, which marks the metal-poor end of the thin disk, higher than that of the thick disk. This is often interpreted as an indication that the thin disk
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  • Simulation illustrating the distribution of dark matter particles expected in a low-mass galaxy if the dark matter did not collide (in orange, concentrated towards the center) versus the observed dark matter (in blue, far more dispersed) / Gabriel Pérez (IAC)
    Press release
    Researchers from the IAC have discovered that dark matter experiences forces beyond gravity
    The existence of dark matter is likely one of the most perplexing problems facing the scientific community, and unraveling its nature has become one of the primary goals of modern physics. In simple terms, we do not know what dark matter is made of, despite accounting for 85% of all the matter in the Universe. A study led by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias concludes that dark matter does not behave as described by the dominant paradigm, which states that dark matter particles only interact with each other and with ordinary matter through gravity. The IAC study reveals that dark
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  • Asteroid reflectance spectra from Gaia DR3
    Research news
    Asteroid reflectance spectra from Gaia DR3: Near-UV in primitive asteroids
    Asteroids are the remnants of the planetary formation in the Solar System and so, their study helps us to understand the conditions during the early stages of the formation of our planetary system. Among asteroids, those classified as primitives present similar spectra to that of carbonaceous chondrites, i.e., they are rich in carbon and organic compounds and silicates altered by the presence of liquid water (phyllosilicates). Primitive asteroids are well characterized in various wavelength regions, showing their most diagnostic feature at 3μm. However, there is a lack of information in the
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  • Central region of the old galaxy NGC 1386 where thousands of stars are forming into star clusters
    Press release
    Regions where extremely young stars are forming have been found in very old galaxies
    An international study led by Almudena Prieto, a researcher at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) has found places where new stars are forming, as faint star clusters, around the centre of an evolved galaxy. This is the first time that young populations of stars have been picked out and dated in this type of galaxies dominated by very old stars, which can be called “rejuvenated old galaxies”. The research has combined observations from various telescopes, both ground based and space based, and has used innovative techniques of data analysis. The results are published in the
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  • Observation of 2024 NP2 obtained with the TST telescope
    Press release
    The Solar System Group at the IAC discovers a new asteroid near the Earth
    The discovery of 2024 NP2 took place during the night of July 4th in images taken during the commissioning of the TST, a new telescope recently installed at the Teide Observatory. On July 4th the first regular observations were made in the commissioning of the Transient Survey Telescope (TST), an astronomical installation produced by a public-private collaboration between the IAC and the Canary company Light Bridges , at the Teide Observatory (Tenerife). The TST is a robotic telescope with a wide field. With a 1 metre telescope and a camera using an sCMOS detector at its prime focus, it can
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