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.

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  • Impresión artística de la estrella HD 93396 y su planeta. Crédito: ESA.
    Press release
    The CHEOPS mission, in which the IAC is participating, observes its first exoplanets
    CHEOPS, the new exoplanet mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) in coordination with Switzerland, in which the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) is participating along with other European instituttions, has successfully complete its almost three month period of the verification and calibration of its instrument, with better results than expected. Astrophysicists from the IAC are leading a group of researchers and engineers who recommend the type of observations to monitor the behaviour of the satellite during its time in space and, as part of the science team, participate in
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  • Artistic rendition of the re-ionisation process. Each dot is a galaxy, which ionises its surroundings forming a bubble. These bubbles can grow depending of the ionising power of each galaxy. If the galaxies are close together the bubbles can merge and form a much larger bubble. With time all the bubbles will merge till the Universe become re-ionised. Ionisation is the process under which high energy photons from the galaxies kick out the electron from the neutral hydrogen atoms thus leaving them ionised.
    Research news
    An ionised bubble powered by a proto-cluster at z = 6.5
    We show herein that a proto-cluster of Lyα emitting galaxies, spectroscopically confirmed at redshift 6.5, produces a remarkable number of ionising continuum photons. We start from the Lyα fluxes measured in the spectra of the sources detected spectroscopically. From these fluxes we derive the ionising emissivity of continuum photons of the proto-cluster, which we compare with the ionising emissivity required to reionise the proto-cluster volume. We find that the sources in the proto-cluster are capable of ionising a large bubble, indeed larger than the volume occupied by the proto-cluster
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  • Artists impression of an active galactic nucleus. Credit: University of Boston-Cosmovision
    Press release
    La Palma telescopes participate in the discovery of a young blazar produced by the merger of two galaxies
    An international team of scientists has obtained the first unequivocal detection of a very high speed jet of matter emitted by a galaxy in the process of merging with another. The flux of particles and radiation, which is emitted by the supermassive black hole in the centre of the galaxy and which is observed face on, shows that it is a precursor structure to the formation of a blazar, one of the most energetic objects known. This discovery was made by combining observations from several telescopes, among them the Gran Telescopio Canarias and the William Herschel Telescope at the Roque de
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  • Three images of the Supermoon of August 10, 2014, taken in the Teide National Park. In the image, the VTT and GREGOR telescopes. Author: Ovidio García (SECAT).
    Press release
    How to see April's Supermoon from home
    On April 8th, you will be able to see the third and biggest Supermoon of 2020. If you follow the recommendations we present below you will be able to obtain some beautiful images of the full Moon from your home.
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