News

This section includes scientific and technological news from the IAC and its Observatories, as well as press releases on scientific and technological results, astronomical events, educational projects, outreach activities and institutional events.

List view
  • Comparison between an observed galaxy (right) and a simulated galaxy (left) showing similarities in mass and size.
    Press release
    IAC researchers develop accurate method to measure dark matter haloes using galaxy sizes
    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
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  • Giant galaxy M87 combining observations in visible light
    Press release
    Grantecan helps reveal how the black hole in the supergiant galaxy M87 shapes its mysterious filaments
    An international team of astronomers has captured the most detailed and completed view yet of the mysterious filaments surrounding the giant galaxy M87. Using new observations from the Gran Telescopio Canarias and the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, the study reveals how these long, thread-like structures move, evolve, and interact with their galactic environment and the activity of the central supermassive black hole. These findings have just been published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. M87: a giant galaxy and its mysterious threads M87, located about 55 million
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  • dm_fig1
    Research news
    The slow expansion of dark matter halos from cusp to core naturally produces extended stellar core-like distributions
    Only a handful of observations truly constrain the nature of dark matter, which is why dozens of different physical models are still viable. Several of the most popular alternatives predict that dark matter halos slowly “thermalize” over time, gradually changing shape and expanding until they form a central region of nearly constant density -- a core. This transformation would not occur if the dark matter particles were completely collision-less, as assumed in the standard model. Therefore, the presence or absence of such a core provides a powerful way to distinguish between the standard
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  • Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS
    Press release
    The TTT telescope at the Teide Observatory detects the first periodic and wobbling jet in an interstellar comet
    The discovery, made in collaboration between the IAC Solar System Group and Light Bridges, reveals the rotation period of comet 3I/ATLAS The Two-metre Twin Telescope (TTT) has made a pioneering discovery in astronomy: the first detection of a jet of gas and dust and its periodic modulation in an interstellar comet, 3I/ATLAS. The study, published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, provides the first evidence of localised activity from an interstellar nucleus, offering unique insight into the nature of a celestial body that formed outside our Solar System. An extraordinarily normal
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  • Libros finalistas del Premio Cosmos
    Photomontage
    El Premio Cosmos anuncia las obras finalistas y refuerza su apuesta por la lectura científica entre la juventud canaria
    El Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) ha anunciado las obras finalistas del Premio Cosmos, en sus dos categorías principales: Premio Cosmos Estudiantes y Premio Cosmos, impulsando así un proyecto educativo internacional que llega por primera vez a España desde Canarias. Con el apoyo del Área STEAM de la Consejería de Educación del Gobierno de Canarias, el patrocinio de la Fundación CajaCanarias y la colaboración de la Real Academia de las Ciencias de Canarias (RACC), el Premio Cosmos tiene como objetivo acercar la ciencia contemporánea al aula, fomentar el pensamiento crítico e
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  • Artistic representation of the Cosmic Brain project, which adapts cosmological analysis techniques to neuroimaging
    Press release
    From studying the universe to neuroimaging: a cosmology technique allows us to “listen” to the structure of the human brain
    A multidisciplinary team of astrophysicists, neuroscientists, engineers, and musicians has unveiled a pioneering method to “listen” to the structure of the human brain. Published in Nature Scientific Reports , the study presents the first higher-order sonification applied to structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data. This technique involves transforming three-dimensional information about the brain into sound, taking into account the spatial relationships and complex structure of the data. To do this, mathematical tools originally developed to study the large-scale structure of the
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