An international collaboration, with participation by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), has found a system of six exoplanets orbiting a central star with a precise rhythm.This phenomenon, known as orbital resonance, is common during the starting phase of planet formation, but it is exceptional to find a system with such a large set of planets which conserves this kind of gravitational synchronism. This finding shows that the system has not undergone major changes during its six billion year history, so that it gives an unusual view of the formation and evolution of planets. The
From 25th to 29th September the Ministry of Science and Innovation, in the framework of the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the European Union, in collaboration with the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), is organizing and participating in a number of events related to research, development and innovation in national and European infrastructures, which are taking place in Tenerife. The aim is to bring together the main protagonists in the sector of research infrastructures (the politicians responsible, organizations, user instituttions etc.) to facilitate cooperation and mutual
A team of scientists led by the Observatory of Munich University and the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias have obtained direct visualization of the process of feeding the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Andromeda galaxy. The study reveals the existence of long filamentary structures of gas and dust which move in a spiral starting at a distance from the black hole and ending up at the black hole itself. The results, which have been published in the Astrophysical Journal, were obtained using images from the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes. The Andromeda Galaxy, which is