On Wednesday 30 October, the headquarters of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) received a talk by the first Swiss astronaut, Claude Nicollier, who wanted to share his experience in space with the personnel of the IAC. Claude Nicollier is the first Swiss astronaut to have flown into space. After his studies at the Universities of Geneva and Lausanne, Claude joined ESA as a member of their first group of astronauts. Since 2007 Nicollier has been a Professor at the Federal Polytechnical School at Lausanne. He has spent more than 1000 hours in space (more than 42 days) including a

The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and the University of La Laguna (ULL) are organizing the XXXV edition of the Canary Islands Winter School of Astrophysic s which will take place between the 8 th and the 17 th of October in La Laguna,Tenerife. For this edition there will be 60 participants, including master’s and doctor’s degree students and postdocs, from thirteen different countries who will come to Tenerife to receive a complete and exhaustive view of the evolution of the galaxies. The Canary Islands Winter School of Astrophysic s is a key event in the calendar of the

Researchers Julia de León and Javier Licandro of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) are participating in the Hera mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) , successfully launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida (USA) on 7th October at 14:52 UTC. This is the first European mission for planetary defence which together with NASA’s DART (Double Asteroid redirection Test) will study the effects of a technique for diverting asteroids called “ kinetic impactor”. The DART probe crashed into the smaller ( Dimorphos) of the two asteroids which form the binary system Didymos, on September