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

A group of astrophysicists led by Mireia Montes, a researcher at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), has discovered the largest and most diffuse galaxy recorded until now. The study has been published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, and has used data taken with the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) and the Green Bank Radiotelescope (GBT). Nube is an almost invisible dwarf galaxy discovered by an international research team led by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) in collaboration with the University of La Laguna (ULL) and other institutions. The name was

La Unidad de Comunicación y Cultura Científica (UC3) del Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), en colaboración con el Museo de la Ciencia y el Cosmos (Museos de Tenerife), ha editado un calendario astronómico con efemérides astronómicas del año 2024. Este puede descargarse y ser consultado de forma digital. También se puede adquirir una copia física en la sede central del IAC. Las 12 imágenes que lo ilustran han sido tomadas por el astrofotógrafo Daniel López (El Cielo de Canarias). También se ha editado otro calendario en formato póster ilustrado con una imagen de la superficie de

The first Large-Sized Telescope (LST) prototype of the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO), located at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (Garafía, La Palma), has made its first scientific discovery by detecting the source OP 313 above 100 gigaelectronvolts (GeV), a level of energy a billion times higher than the visible light that humans can perceive. It is the most distant quasar ever observed by gamma-ray instruments from the ground. On 15 December, the Large-Sized Telescope (LST) Collaboration announced through an Astronomer’s Telegram (ATel) the detection of the source OP

Antonia Varela Pérez has been appointed by the Cabildo of Tenerife, at the proposal of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), as the new director of the Museum of Science and the Cosmos. Varela will take over from Héctor Socas Navarro, also a researcher at the IAC, who has been in charge of the Museum since 2019. Varela is a researcher at the IAC and a member of the IAC's Sky Quality Group for the Characterisation of the Canary Observatories and the Starburst Formation Group. She is also managing director of the Starlight Foundation and president of BPW Canarias, as well as a PhD in