A hungry black hole which wakes up every 25 years

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  • Artistic impression of the V Sagittae star system, where a superdense white dwarf extracts matter from its larger companion. Unable to assimilate all the transferred mass, a bright ring of gas forms around it.
    Press release
    The IAC and the ULL participate in the discovery of an unusual ‘stellar dance’ that could culminate in an explosion visible from Earth
    A greedy white dwarf star in our own Milky Way galaxy is devouring its closest celestial companion at a rate never seen before, according to an international study involving the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC) and the University of La Laguna (ULL). The research, published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society , found the double star, named V Sagittae, is burning unusually bright as the super-dense white dwarf is gorging on its larger twin in a feeding frenzy. Experts think the stars are locked in an "extraterrestrial tango" as they orbit each other every
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  • Imagen digital del TMT
    Press release
    The CCI supports the option for the TMT to be installed at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory
    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
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  • An artistic illustration that combines a real image of a galaxy with a representation of the stellar orbits within it, to show how the study of the movements of stars allows us to reconstruct the history of galaxies.
    Press release
    Extragalactic archaeology provides new clues about the formation of the galaxies
    An international review article in which IAC researcher Jesús Falcón Barroso is a contributor, explains how the study of stellar populations in galaxies outside the Milky Way and the Local Group, using techniques which are called “extragalactic archaeology”, permits the reconstruction of the processes of formation and evolution of those galaxies. This article has been published in the Annual Review of Astronomy & Astrophysics , one of the most prestigious journals in this field, to which only five researchers of the IAC have contributed during the lifetime of the Institute. How did the
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