JANUS, the optical camera on ESA's JUICE probe, captures stunning images during its first lunar and terrestrial flyby

JANUS, the optical camera on ESA's JUICE probe, captured stunning images of the Earth and Moon during its first lunar and terrestrial flyby. This high-risk manoeuvre, successfully completed between 19-20 August, allowed JUICE to alter its speed and direction for a close flyby of Venus in August 2025. This critical step is part of JUICE's journey through the inner Solar System towards its final destination: the moons of Jupiter. 

SETTING UP THE JANUS CAMERA

Origin of persistent emission in enigmatic Fast Radio Bursts revealed

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are one of the most powerful and enigmatic cosmic events in the universe. Discovered just over a decade ago, these bursts release an immense amount of energy in milliseconds, making them one of the most energetic types of phenomena observed to date. However, the physical processes that give rise to them are still unknown and represent one of the most fascinating open questions in modern astrophysics today. In some cases, the brief flash of an FRB is accompanied by persistent fainter radio emission.

NASA's DART mission captures high-resolution image of the binary asteroid system Didymos

An international team of astronomers, with participation from the Instituto de Ciencias del Espacio (ICE-CSIC) and the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC), both from the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), and the Instituto de Estudios Espaciales de Cataluña (IEEC), presents the first high-resolution images of Didymos, a near-Earth binary asteroid system. The images obtained with the DART and LICIACube probes have allowed astronomers to infer key information about the geology and evolution of the asteroid system.

The IAA-CSIC participates in a project that offers the scientific community three-dimensional images of 100 galaxies

The CAVITY project, led by the University of Granada, and with an important participation of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC), launches its first public distribution of data, which means offering the scientific community spectroscopic information covering the two-dimensional extent (data cubes) of 100 galaxies. This is the only 3D mapping of galaxies in cosmic voids, i.e., those in whose interior there is almost no mass. 

Sunrise III successfully launched

After four attempts and more than a month of waiting, the Sunrise III mission has been successfully launched.

It has a strong participation of the Solar Physics Group of the IAA, which leads one of the three postfocus instruments (TuMag) and co-leads another (SCIP). 

The most distant and oldest star clusters discovered

Thanks to observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST - NASA/ESA/CSA), an international collaboration led by Angela Adamo of Stockholm University and the Oscar Klein Centre in Sweden has discovered a set of five gravitationally bound star clusters in a galaxy whose light was emitted when the Universe was only 460 million years old.

The IAA strengthens CSIC's international role in the SKA Observatory

The "CSIC4SKA" project, led by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC) and with the participation of members of other CSIC centres (IFCA, ICE and CAB), is one of the five projects that have obtained funding from the CSIC Programme for Large European Research Infrastructures (INFRAS 2024 Call), with an endowment of nearly 100,000 euros.

ANDES instrument for the European Giant Telescope ELT is agreed upon

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) has signed today an agreement with an international consortium of institutions, including the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC) and the Centro de Astrobiología de Madrid (CSIC-INTA), for the design and construction of ANDES (ArmazoNes high Dispersion Echelle Spectrograph).

It snows more on Mars than expected

Just like Earth, Mars experiences four seasons throughout the year due to the tilt of its rotational axis. During Martian autumn and winter, temperatures in its polar regions can drop below the freezing point of carbon dioxide (around -125°C), which constitutes 95% of Mars' atmosphere by volume. This carbon dioxide can deposit on the surface of the red planet either by precipitating as snow or directly condensing into frost.

Earth-type planet found in an ultra-cool dwarf star

Within the SPECULOOS project, led by the University of Liège with a strong participation of members of the IAA-CSIC, an exo-Earth, a planet similar in size to the Earth, has been discovered orbiting an ultra-cool dwarf star. This type of star, similar in size to Jupiter, is up to ten times less massive and a thousand times less luminous than our Sun.

Giant planet as light as cotton candy discovered

An international team, co-led by IAA-CSIC researcher Francisco J. Pozuelos, has discovered an extraordinarily light planet orbiting a distant star in our galaxy. This discovery, published today in the journal Nature Astronomy, challenges our understanding of the formation of giant and ultralight planets.

The new planet, dubbed WASP-193b, is about 50% larger than Jupiter, but its density is about 25 times lower, an extremely low value that suggests the planet is as ethereal as cotton candy.

Newly collapsed red supergiant star spotted

In May 2023, telescopes around the globe recorded the explosion of a red supergiant star 21 million light-years away. This is the earliest detection of a supernova phenomenon caused by the collapse of the star's core just before it dies. A team from Tsinghua University has analysed all the observations, including those from the BOOTES-4/MET telescope run by the IAA-CSIC.

Astronomers Unveil Strong Magnetic Fields Spiraling at the Edge of Milky Way’s Central Black Hole

A new image from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration has uncovered strong and organized magnetic fields spiraling from the edge of the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*). Seen in polarized light for the first time, this new view of the monster lurking at the heart of the Milky Way Galaxy has revealed a magnetic field structure strikingly similar to that of the black hole at the center of the M87 galaxy, suggesting that strong magnetic fields may be common to all black holes. This similarity also hints toward a hidden jet in Sgr A*.

First observation of the formation of 'rare earths' following the merger of two neutron stars

Kilonovae are extraordinarily energetic and explosive astronomical events that result from the merger of two neutron stars, or of a neutron star with either a black hole or a white dwarf star (the corpse of a Sun-like star). These rare phenomena are characterised by the emission of a short, intense gamma-ray burst (GRB), usually lasting less than two seconds.

The European Space Agency approves construction of EnVision, the next major mission to Venus

The European Space Agency (ESA) has approved the construction and implementation of EnVision, a space mission that aims to answer many of the open questions about the planet Venus. The Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC) is significantly involved in one of the four main instruments of the mission. During the course of this year, the project will select a European industrial contractor to begin work on the construction of the instruments and the spacecraft. 

The AFGL 5180 region, cradle of giant forming stars, reveals its secrets in the infrared

Massive stars play a key role in the evolution of the universe: they are the main source of heavy elements and affect the process of star and planet formation, as well as the structure of galaxies. However, we do not yet have an established model of how they are born and evolve. An international scientific team, led by the IAA-CSIC, has observed the star-forming region AFGL 5180, the cradle of many massive stars, at very high infrared resolution, allowing a census of stars in the region to be made.

M87* One Year Later: Proof of a persistent black hole shadow

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration, including researchers from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (CSIC), has released new images of M87*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy Messier 87, using data from observations taken in April 2018.  With the participation of the newly commissioned Greenland Telescope and a dramatically improved recording rate across the array, the 2018 observations give us a view of the source independent from the first observations in 2017. 

Project DUSTER: a study of lunar dust in preparation for future exploration missions

International scientific and commercial interest in exploration missions to Solar System bodies such as the Moon, asteroids and comets has grown considerably over the past two decades and will continue to do so in the future. One of the main environmental constraints during exploration missions is the presence of charged dust particles, and an international scientific and engineering team has taken up the challenge of studying them through the European Union's HORIZON-funded DUSTER project.

Galaxies caught in the throes of chemical 'rejuvenation'

Since the 1980s, a class of galaxies characterised by strong emission in the infrared - over a hundred billion times the luminosity of the Sun - and very low brightness in the visible and ultraviolet range has been known. These Luminous Infrared Galaxies (LIRGs) were later joined by Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies (ULIRGs), with emission in the infrared range billions of times the Sun's luminosity.

Detected the most distant AGN observed to date at very high energies

On 15 December, the Large-Sized Telescope (LST) Collaboration announced via an Astronomer's Telegram (ATel) the detection of the source OP 313 at very high energies with LST-1.

The origin of ghosts, a type of atmospheric transient luminous event, revealed

In the mesosphere, a region of the atmosphere that was believed to be devoid of electrical activity, gigantic and brief luminous flashes occur, the discovery of which, just three decades ago, surprised the scientific community. Given their elusive nature, they were given names taken from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, such as sprites or elves. Related to thunderstorms, but located tens of kilometres above the clouds, they include ghosts (or GHOSTs, GreenisH Optical emission from Sprite Tops), greenish flashes whose origin has been attributed to oxygen.

On the night of 11-12 December, the star Betelgeuse will disappear... for a few seconds

During the night of December 11-12, 2023, the asteroid Leona will pass in front of the star Betelgeuse, a very rare event known as stellar occultation. The phenomenon, during which we will see Betelgeuse disappear for a few seconds, will be visible along a strip in southern Spain, from Murcia to Huelva. It will offer a unique opportunity to study both objects, and the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC) has organized an observation campaign with mobile telescopes to obtain as much data as possible.

A cosmic dance reveals a system of six planets

An international scientific team, with the participation of the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC), publishes today in Nature the discovery of a system of six planets orbiting HD110067, a Sun-like star. It is the brightest known system with more than four planets, which is unique because all its members orbit the star in synchronised orbits, or in resonance, something that is rarely observed and which is an indication that the system maintains the same configuration as when it formed billions of years ago.

The IAA-CSIC prepares for groundbreaking climate research from space

The European Space Agency (ESA) has selected the CAIRT project, developed by a scientific group led by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and involving the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC), as one of the two final candidates for the Earth Explorer 11 mission, to be launched in 2032. The final decision on its implementation will be taken in 2025.

The IAA-CSIC tackles the computational challenge of the SKA Observatory to study the birth of the first stars

When completed, the SKAO telescopes will surpass in sensitivity and observing speed the best radio astronomy facilities available today. SKAO will produce data that will require new methods of analysis, and to prepare the astronomical community for its novel nature, the SKA Data Challenges, a series of exercises with simulated data from the SKAO telescopes, are being held.

Granada hosts an international meeting to address the problem of light pollution as part of the Spanish presidency of the EU

Light pollution, which originates from the inappropriate use of artificial light, is an environmental problem with a direct impact on the balance of ecosystems, on astronomical observations and on our health. It is also a huge waste of energy and limits the experience of enjoying the starry skies. The Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC), through its Sky Quality Office, hosts this week an international meeting to address this problem within the agenda of meetings of the Ministry of Science and Innovation that are part of the presidency Spanish EU.

Space interferometry observations reveal helical filaments inside a supermassive black hole's jet stream

Blazars are the most powerful sources of continuum radiation in the universe. Like all active galaxies, they show a structure formed by a central supermassive black hole surrounded by a disc of matter that feeds it, but they are among the 10% of active galaxies that show a jet of matter emerging from both poles at very high speed, and among the even smaller percentage of cases in which their orientation allows us to see the jet almost head-on.

J-PAS: largest mapping of the cosmos begins

The Javalambre Astrophysical Observatory (OAJ) has just taken the first data from the J-PAS project (Javalambre Physics of the Accelerating Universe Astrophysical Survey), a large and unprecedented three-dimensional mapping of the cosmos that is planned to be carried out over the course of this decade.

It will observe thousands of square degrees of sky with hundreds of millions of galaxies and stars, with the ultimate goal of advancing our understanding of the nature of dark energy by studying the large-scale structure of the universe. 

Two decades of observing galaxy M87 show an oscillating jet connected to a rotating black hole

An international scientific team, with the participation of the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC), has analysed 23 years of data from the centre of the galaxy M87, home to a black hole 6.5 billion times more massive than the Sun. The results, published in Nature, reveal that the jet emerging from the black hole at very high speed oscillates up and down with an amplitude of about ten degrees, which in turn confirms that the black hole is rotating.