ESA’s Hera mission for planetary defense performed a flyby of Mars, as part of its gravitational assistance manoeuvre to shorten its journey to the binary asteroid system Didymos. During the flyby, the spacecraft came around 5000 km from the surface of Mars, having also the opportunity to obtain images of its two moons, Deimos (during the approach) and Phobos (when departing Mars). Julia de León, Javier Licandro, and George Prodan, researchers at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, participate in this mission, successfully launched from Cape Cañaveral, Florida (USA) on October 7, 2024

An international team led by Cristina Ramos Almeida, a researcher at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), has used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to observe five dust-obscured quasars — and the results offer new insights into how galaxies and their central supermassive black holes may evolve. The study is published today in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics . The energy released by supermassive black holes at the centres of galaxies is a fundamental ingredient in regulating the formation of new stars, and thus galaxy growth. This occurs during an active phase, usually

The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) is joining the Earth Hour, a global movement that, once a year, reminds us that nature is the planet’s life support and highlights the environmental emergency that requires collective action.