An international scientific team, including the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), has detected distortions in the brightness of a galaxy's disc that could be explained by the gravitational effect of an unknown neighbouring galaxy. Named GTC-1, the satellite galaxy was discovered using ultra-deep images obtained with the OSIRIS camera of the Gran Telescopio Canarias, located at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory in La Palma. The finding provides a possible explanation for a puzzle about way the light fades out at the edges of galaxy disks, a mystery that has bothered the
The first Canary Earth Observation Satellite, belonging to the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), has successfully passed all the pre-launch technical tests, and is on the way to the United States for launch from California before the end of the year. ALISIO-1 ( Advanced Land-Imaging Satellite for Infrared Observations) is the first Canary satellite which will orbit the Earth, in the framework of the ALISIO space programme, led by the IAC and coordinated by the IACTEC-Space group. In 2018, the team gained its first success after the launch of an atmospheric sounding balloon with
A pioneering study from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) which combines laboratory chemistry with astrophysics, has shown for the first time that grains of dust formed by carbon and hydrogen in a highly disordered state, known as HAC, can take part in the formation of fullerenes, carbon molecules which are of key importance for the development of life in the universe, and with potential applications in nanotechnology. The results are published as a Letter to the Editor in the prestigious journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. Fullerenes are carbon molecules which are very big