The new infrared spectrograph NIRPS, built with the participation of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and installed on the 3.6-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile, has achieved its first scientific results, with four articles published today in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics and one more accepted for publication. The data confirm its ability to detect Earth-like planets in the infrared for the first time with a precision better than one metre per second. One of the papers, led by IAC researcher Alejandro Suárez Mascareño, confirms the presence of a
A new study published in Astronomy & Astrophysics unveils a powerful way to determine the size of dark matter haloes—the massive, invisible structures that host galaxies—by simply measuring how large galaxies appear in deep astronomical images. Researchers Ignacio Trujillo and Claudio Dalla Vecchia, from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and the Universidad de La Laguna (ULL), demonstrate that galaxy size can serve as a precise proxy for halo size, offering measurements up to six times more accurate than previous methods. Using the cutting-edge EAGLE cosmological simulations
Statement supporting the selection of La Palma for the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) site: The Comité Científico Internacional (CCI) of the Canary Islands Observatories enthusiastically welcomes the possibility that the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) may ultimately choose the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos (ORM) on La Palma as its site. The ORM offers outstanding astronomical conditions, decades of successful international cooperation in operating telescopes, and a robust legal framework protecting its dark skies. At its meeting on 27 November 2025 on the island of La Palma, the CCI