Research led by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) has used an innovative technique based on artificial intelligence to study how stars form in galaxies. By analysing 10 000 nearby galaxies, the team have discovered that most stars are born within their own galaxy. Galactic mergers, while important, are not the main source of new stars. Furthermore, the study reveals that more massive galaxies are more affected by these mergers. These results, published in Nature Astronomy, provide new clues about the complex history of galaxies and their evolution over time. Most galaxies do not

The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) has successfully completed the integration of the scientific detector into the FRIDA (inFRared Imager and Dissector for Adaptive Optics) instrument, an integra-field camera and spectrograph designed to work with the adaptive optics system of the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC or Grantecan), the world's largest optical and infrared telescope, located at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory in La Palma. The integration was carried out in the laboratories of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in Mexico City by a team from the IAC

A team of researchers from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), collaborating with other international institutions, has managed to find new galaxies in the Spiderweb protocluster. This was possible thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope, which is a project of the space agencies of the United States (NASA), Europe (ESA) and Canada (CSA). Exploring the populations of galaxies, and discovering their physical properties in large scale structures helps astronomers to understand galaxy formation and how their assembly is determined by their environment. The “ Spiderweb” protocluster