Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía

Uncovering the magnetized path of massive star formation
2024-10-10 12:30 - 13:30 (Europe/Paris) | IAA – CSIC, Glorieta de la Astronomía, Granada, España
Both observational and theoretical studies suggest that the magnetic field plays an important role in the process of massive star and cluster formation. However, many open questions still remain, including the exact role of B-field at the different scales (from cloud to disk scales) and its importance compared to turbulence, feedback and self-gravity. Multi-scale studies of the morphology and strength of the magnetic field are thus crucial to properly unveil the role of the magnetic field in the formation of high-mass stars. In this talk, I will mainly focus on the multi-scale study of the magnetic field toward the high-mass star-forming region G31.41+0.31 carried out with both single-dish and interferometric observations of polarized dust emission. G31.41+0.31 is one of the most studied objects in polarized emission and the first high-mass star-forming core to show an hourglass-shaped magnetic field morphology. Finally, I will also present three on-going observational campaigns that will allow us to further constrain the role of the magnetic field in massive star formation and to construct a multi-scale magnetized path of massive star formation.
Fecha: 10/10/2024 – 12:30Conferenciante: Dr. Chi Yan (Paul) LawFiliación: INAF – Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Italy

El Universo desde Sevilla III
2024-10-10 19:00 - 2024-11-21 21:00 | Casa de la Ciencia de Sevilla, Av. de María Luisa, s/n, Sevilla, Sevilla, 41013, Spain
«El Universo desde Sevilla» llega a su tercera edición como un programa de conferencias para la difusión de la Astrofísica y Ciencias del Espacio de especialistas de Sevilla.
Es una contribución del Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) y en particular del Museo Casa de la Ciencia (CSIC) de Sevilla. El fin es destacar el potencial científico-tecnológico-empresarial que tiene Sevilla y Andalucía en el área aeroespacial.
Esta iniciativa, que se desarrollará con tres ponencias durante los meses de octubre y noviembre, está coordinada por el investigador del Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC) Emilio J. Alfaro Navarro.
El programa es el siguiente:
10 de octubre de 2024. «El Sol desde el espacio»
Jose Carlos del Toro Iniesta (IAA-CSIC)
El Sol es nuestra estrella más cercana y, además de proporcionar la energía necesaria para la vida, es un laboratorio que nos aporta información sobre el resto de estrellas y otras ramas de la física como la atómica. Se observa desde tiempos inmemoriales, pero ahora podemos hacerlo desde el espacio abriendo una ventana de conocimiento que no era accesible desde la Tierra.

7 de noviembre de 2024. «Entre lo visible y lo invisible: Materia y energía oscuras»
José Oñorbe Bernis (US)
En el modelo cosmológico estándar actual sólo el 5% del universo está hecho de materia ordinaria, como los átomos que forman las estrellas, los planetas, y nosotros. El resto del universo es oscuro y desconocido, compuesto de materia y energía oscuras. ¿Qué son estas componentes oscuras? ¿Por qué parecen ser tan relevantes en nuestro Universo? En esta conferencia intentaremos contestar a estas preguntas y hablaremos de las observaciones clave que han dado lugar a este modelo. Además discutiré sobre otras interpretaciones fuera del modelo estándar y por supuesto, habrá mucho tiempo para contestar vuestras preguntas.

21 de noviembre de 2024. «Los polvos del universo: polvo cósmico y COVID»
Olga Muñoz Gómez (IAA-CSIC)
Olga Muñoz, directora del Laboratorio de Polvo Cósmico, Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA), nos hablará sobre que el polvo cósmico es lo que conocemos como polvo de estrellas, el que se forma en la nube de gas en expansión en una estrella y es el polvo a partir del cual se forman todos los cuerpos que conocemos en el universo.

SO Colloquium: Radio eyes for the Sun, Heliosphere and Ionosphere: Status and plans for the SKAO era
2024-10-17 12:30 - 13:30 | IAA – CSIC, Glorieta de la Astronomía, Granada, España
We stand on the brink of the SKAO era, this talk aims to elucidate the transformative potential of SKAO for solar physics, heliospheric, and ionospheric research. The SKAO’s advanced radio telescopes, with their superior angular, spectral, and temporal resolution, are poised to offer new insights into solar activity and its effects on the heliosphere and ionosphere. The deployment of SKAO’s facilities, including the pathfinders LOFAR, MWA, and MeerKAT, marks a significant advancement in our ability to monitor solar phenomena and their interactions with the heliosphere and ionosphere. These instruments have already begun to enhance our capabilities for detailed observations and will continue to do so as part of the SKAO network. The integration of these pathfinders with SKAO’s infrastructure is expected to improve our understanding of the solar dynamics by enabling high-resolution imaging of solar flares, coronal mass ejections, and other solar events that influence space weather. Furthermore, the SKAO’s design considerations for ionospheric calibration and its potential for heliospheric science underscore its role in advancing our knowledge of cosmic ray transport and the structure of the heliosphere. This is crucial for improving models of space weather forecasting and understanding the solar-terrestrial interactions that affect our planet’s environment. In summary, the SKAO provides an unparalleled opportunity to explore the Sun, heliosphere, and ionosphere with a level of detail previously unattainable. This talk will discuss the current status of these research areas and outline the future plans for exploiting SKAO’s full scientific potential, thereby ushering in a new era of discovery in solar and space sciences.
Fecha: 17/10/2024 – 12:30Conferenciante: Dr. Pietro ZuccaFiliación: ASTRON, The Netherlands

SO Colloquium: Role of Astrophotonics in Astronomy: The MARCOT Pathfinder
2024-10-24 12:30 - 13:30 | IAA – CSIC, Glorieta de la Astronomía, Granada, España
Dr. Kalaga Venu Madhav, a renowned astrophysicist from the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam, will present a colloquium on the role of astrophotonics in astronomy, focusing on the MARCOT Pathfinder project. The talk will cover advancements in astrophotonic technologies and their applications in modern astronomical instrumentation. Dr. Madhav will discuss the development and implementation of photonic devices in telescopes, their impact on observational capabilities, and the prospects of astrophotonics in enhancing our understanding of the universe. This colloquium will provide insights into the innovative technologies driving contemporary astronomical research.
Fecha: 24/10/2024 – 12:30Conferenciante: Dr. Kalaga MadhavFiliación: Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP), Germany

PySnacks 8: PyBDSF
2024-10-31 10:30 - 23:30 | IAA – CSIC, Glorieta de la Astronomía, Granada, España
The Python Blob Detector and Source Finder (PyBDSF) is a CASA-based software designed for source detection in radio-interferometric images. Originally developed for the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR), PyBDSF is designed to work on a wide range of scales, cataloguing different types of sources and allowing post-extraction filtering depending on the user’s scientific purposes. PyBDSF works on images produced by any radio-interferometer. In short, PyBDSF loads the image in fits or CASA format, computes some basic image statistics (rms and mean), and calculates a threshold to separate source from noise pixels with different algorithms that can be chosen by the user. Then, the program identifies islands of emission which are fitted with one or multiple Gaussians. The resulting source catalogue, which can be written into different formats (ascii, fits, txt,…) for subsequent analysis, provides key source properties such as astrometry, integrated and peak fluxes, source geometry, etc. In addition, internally derived images (rms noise maps, Gaussian residual and models, etc) are written in commonly used formats (fits or CASA) if specified by the user. It is possible to work with PyBDSF interactively in a terminal, or via Python scripts or notebooks. PyBDSF can work with all Stokes parameters and compute the polarisation percentage and angle for each source. Also, PyBDSF can compute the spectral indices of both extended and unresolved sources provided a frequency cube is input. Finally, PyBDSF can estimate the PSF spatial variation across the image and correct it. This is of special interest for low frequency observations (such as those of LOFAR) which are more prominently affected by ionospheric effects.

Using CHEOPS to confirm small transiting exoplanets orbiting bright stars
2024-10-31 12:30 - 13:30 | IAA – CSIC, Glorieta de la Astronomía, Granada, España
Exoplanets which transit their host stars are unique in allowing detailed characterisation of planetary radius, mass and atmospheric properties. NASA’s TESS mission, which has so far observed 97% of the sky with precise photometry, is especially adept at detecting small transiting planets orbiting the brightest & closest stars. It is these for which the most precise bulk characterisation, for example of the planetary masses via the radial velocity (RV) technique, and atmospheric characterisation via transmission spectroscopy with JWST observations. However, the limited precision and noncontinuous observing strategy of TESS means it is unable to find the smallest or longest period planets. ESA’s CHEOPS mission is a 30cm space telescope launched to near earth orbit in 2019 and capable of precise photometry of bright stars. I will present multiple avenues whereby we have used CHEOPS observations to confirm new transiting exoplanets. This includes confirming low-amplitude TESS candidate planets in the HIP 29442 system, serendipitous detection of additional planets in the nu2 Lupi, HD 108236 & LHS 1903 systems, and RV-assisted transit detections in the TOI-561 system. The most productive approach has been to target candidates showing two non-continuous TESS transits. This has lead to around 20 newly detected sub-Neptunes on long periods, including in multi-planet systems such as TOI-2076, HIP 9618, and the resonant 6-planet system HD110067.
Fecha: 31/10/2024 – 12:30Conferenciante: Dr. Hugh OsbornFiliación: Physics Institute, University of Bern & Institute for Particle & Astrophysics, ETH Zurich

Impacto de los Metales Antropogénicos en la Atmósfera: Desafíos y Estrategias en la Era de las Megaconstelaciones
2024-10-31 19:00 - 20:00 | IAA – CSIC, Glorieta de la Astronomía, Granada, España
En las próximas décadas se espera un incremento significativo en el número de satélites en la órbita baja terrestre, principalmente impulsado por el crecimiento de las megaconstelaciones de telecomunicaciones de banda ancha. La estrategia de ‘cero residuos’ de las agencias espaciales busca evitar la generación de grandes cantidades de basura espacial mediante la desintegración programada de vehículos usados y satélites inactivos en la atmósfera terrestre. Sin embargo, esta estrategia ha suscitado inquietudes en la comunidad científica por los posibles impactos ambientales de los metales inyectados en la atmósfera, especialmente sobre la capa de ozono estratosférico. De hecho, mediciones recientes revelan que el 10% de las partículas de sulfato estratosférico ya contienen metales exóticos utilizados por la industria aeroespacial.
En esta charla repasaremos las proyecciones de reentrada de vehículos espaciales en la atmósfera durante la próxima década, la estrategia de reducción de residuos propuesta por la Agencia Espacial Europea, y el previsible aumento en la inyección de metales en la atmósfera, tanto en forma gaseosa como de micropartículas. Además, exploraremos los potenciales efectos químicos de los metales antropogénicos en la mesosfera y estratosfera, utilizando como referencia la química de los metales meteóricos, que están presentes de manera natural en la atmósfera y generan una sorprendente variedad de fenómenos atmosféricos. Finalmente, destacaremos cómo la investigación experimental puede orientar a las agencias y a la industria aeroespacial en la mejora de sus estrategias y la mitigación de sus impactos.
Fecha: 31/10/2024 – 19:00Conferenciante: Juan Carlos Gómez MartínFiliación: Cosmic Dust Laboratory – Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC)

Writing and Communicating your Science
2024-11-04 - 2024-11-08 | IAA – CSIC, Glorieta de la Astronomía, Granada, España
There is no science without communication and no successful scientists without good writing and communication skills. You can do the best science that exists, if you don’t write papers about it – papers that get cited! – and if you don’t give presentations that impress people, your science will likely be ignored. Moreover, if you do not write convincing proposals that appeal to non-specialists, you won’t get observing time, nor the coveted post-doc position and certainly not the very competitive but needed grants to fund your research. Finally, as a scientist, it is your duty and privilege to communicate your science to the general public, policy makers and the media, and like all the rest, this is something that needs to be learned.
This course is an introduction about how to get your message across in the various supports you need to use as a scientist. It is aimed are junior scientists who are writing their first papers, but will also be helpful for colleagues with more experience. The skills learned in this course will be more generally applicable as well, whether or not you not plan to build a further career as an academic.
The course will be split in five sessions combining two hours of lectures and 1.5 hours of exercises. During the course and the exercises, you will refer to your own writing when we discuss items like title, abstract, introduction, or paragraph and sentence structure, so bring with you your latest paper, whether in early draft form or submitted to a journal.

New UGR proceedings for PhDs
2024-11-06 12:30 - 13:30 | IAA – CSIC, Glorieta de la Astronomía, Granada, España
Every year we all doubt what needs to be done and uploaded for the university. This is a reminder and updated seminar about the current proceedings that affect the PhD, especially important since the UGR has modified some things recently.
Fecha: 06/11/2024 – 12:30Conferenciante: Dr. Antonio García HernándezFiliación: UGR, Granada

SO Colloquium: The tidal arms of open star clusters are much longer than thought, but more difficult to find
2024-11-07 12:30 - 13:30 | IAA – CSIC, Glorieta de la Astronomía, Granada, España
The tidal arms of stellar clusters are an important tool for studying the clusters’ birth conditions, their evolution, coupling, and interaction with the Galactic potential. They also help understand how field stars populate the Milky Way. Thanks to Gaia, much progress has been accomplished in finding the tidal arms of open clusters. I will show here that such arms are much longer than previously observed, and that their identification requires not only a sophisticated analysis of the Gaia catalogue, using the convergent point method and clustering algorithms, but ideally, the use of N-body simulations and the new compact convergent point method. I will highlight recent results about the arms of several open clusters, which extend over several hundreds of parsecs.
Fecha: 07/11/2024 – 12:30Conferenciante: Dr. Henri BoffinFiliación: European Southern Observatory

Ozone and the Search for Life in the Universe
2024-11-14 12:30 - 13:30 | IAA – CSIC, Glorieta de la Astronomía, Granada, España
As we approach the era where we will be able to characterize the atmospheres of terrestrial exoplanets, we are put on a path to answer one of humanity’s most compelling questions: are we alone in the universe? Molecular oxygen (O2) with a reducing gas (i.e., methane) is widely regarded as a promising biosignature – a sign of life in the atmospheres of terrestrial exoplanets. However, there are circumstances in which O2 will be very difficult or impossible to detect, such as in atmospheres with small amounts of O2 (as was the case for much of Earth’s history), or for missions looking in the mid-IR. For these scenarios, it has been suggested that ozone (O3), the photochemical product of O2, could be used as a proxy to infer the presence of O2. While O3 is not directly produced by life, it plays an important role in habitability as the ozone layer is the primary source of UV shielding for surface life on Earth. However O3 production is known to have a nonlinear dependence on O2, along with being strongly influenced by the UV spectrum of the planet’s host star. In this talk I will discuss planetary habitability in general as well as the climate and photochemistry modeling I have done to assess the reliability of O3 as a proxy for O2. Overall I find that the O2-O3 relationship varies significantly around different stellar hosts, with distinct trends between planets orbiting hotter stars (G0V-K2V) versus cooler stars (K5V-M5V). Understanding the full context of the planetary atmosphere will be key for interpreting emission spectral features of biosignature gases.
Fecha: 14/11/2024 – 12:30Conferenciante: Dr. Thea KozakisFiliación: IAA-CSIC, Granada, Spain

Towards the Standardization of the Modeling of Multi-Frequency Observations
2024-11-21 12:30 - 13:30 | IAA – CSIC, Glorieta de la Astronomía, Granada, España
Blazars, a class of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) with relativistic jets oriented toward Earth, are powerful and highly variable emitters across the electromagnetic spectrum. Time-domain multi-messenger and multi-wavelength (MWL) studies are essential for understanding the physical processes at work on these systems, yet they often rely on proprietary tools specific to each instrument for reconstructing and modeling the collected data. In this talk, the current state of blazar studies is briefly outlined within the context of astroparticle physics and gamma-ray astrophysics, with a focus on the importance of MWL observations.
In the second part, we explore the use of the open-source Python package Gammapy, originally developed for gamma-ray data analysis, to design a unified framework for MWL analyses, spanning a broad energy range from optical to gamma-rays. Recent data from the flaring blazars OP 313 and 4C+27.50 are used to illustrate how a consistent analysis and modeling of the data can be performed by integrating observations from instruments such as the Liverpool Telescope, Swift, NuSTAR, and Fermi-LAT. A forward-folding approach is employed, providing a more rigorous treatment of observational data, instrument responses and astrophysical and instrumental backgrounds. With this, we demonstrate the potential of open-source tools and standardized data formats to unify traditionally isolated datasets, setting the path for more accessible and reproducible MWL studies. The seminar concludes with a discussion of two immediate applications of this methodology in AGN research.
Fecha: 21/11/2024 – 12:30Conferenciante: Dra. Mireia Nievas RosilloFiliación: IAC, Canarias, Spain

Introduction to GitHub
2024-11-25 11:30 - 13:00 | IAA – CSIC, Glorieta de la Astronomía, Granada, España
This session is a hands-on introduction to using GitHub for scientific research collaboration within the Severo Ochoa Training Initiative of the IAA-CSIC. We’ll explore software repositories and their role in managing and sharing research work within a group. Key concepts—such as commits, forks, pushes, pulls, and pull requests—will be clarified with practical examples of their use. Participants will also receive practical guidance on repository management and effective collaboration techniques. The session includes a hands-on component where attendees will create repositories and work together to build and populate a shared repository using GitHub’s tools.
(Note: This tutorial will focus on GitHub’s interface and functionality, not on Git. A follow-up session will address Git fundamentals in depth.)
Information
– This event is a hands-on session on how to use GitHub. It will be given by Manuel Parra and Javier Moldón, from the IAA-CSIC.– This training event will be primarily held in-person at the IAA. While remote participation is available, in-person attendees will be prioritized given the interactive and hands-on nature of the session.– Registration is required (see below).
Content
Lecture: Introduction to Github
Practical exercises:– Exercise 1 – Create an initial repository for this session– Exercise 2 – Managing forks to collaborate– Exercise 3 – Managing branches– Exercise 4 – Common project. Interacting with repositories and users. Parallel merge requests
Date and location
Place: Sala Polivalente, Building A, IAA-CSICDate and time: Monday, November 25th, 11:30 to 13:00h
Registration
Please register at https://forms.gle/BUHDGhEFxRV5J4YS8 before the 19 November 2024. The number of participants will be limited to 15. First come, first serve.

Hot Topics High Energy Astrophysics HONEST 3
2024-11-26 - 2024-11-28 | IAA – CSIC, Glorieta de la Astronomía, Granada, España
The high energy end of pulsar spectra.
Pulsars as rapidly spinning neutron stars have always been excellent laboratories for the study of plasma physics, particle acceleration and cosmic rays. Comprehending how and where particles are accelerated to produce the broadband shape that the pulsed spectra present is subject of enthusiastic discussions and constitute one of the hot topics in high energy astrophysics nowadays.
Results from the recent years extending pulsar spectra to TeV energies and beyond motivate debates that can only be elucidated through a deep understanding of the high energy end of their spectrum. In this Workshop, we aim to discuss the latest results on pulsars from high energy instruments, their implications for the current theories, and prospects for future observatories.

SO Colloquium: Cosmic chemical evolution: here, there, and everywhere
2024-11-28 12:30 - 13:30 | IAA – CSIC, Glorieta de la Astronomía, Granada, España
Metals play a very important role in star formation and stellar evolution. Amongst other things they control the cooling of the interstellar gas, thus allowing the formation of stars; they affect the radiation transport, through the opacities involved in the different microscopic processes; and they have the most important role in the dust formation and in the mass loss from stars. Metals are formed inside stars. Therefore, it is expected that metal enrichment in the universe should start soon after the formation of the first massive stars that, after a very short life, would return to the interstellar medium (ISM) in explosive events newly synthesised chemical elements, heavier than the primordial hydrogen and helium. It is thought that this ejecta, at some point mixed with the surrounding gas, would help to its cooling and propitiate the appearance of a new generation of stars, hence giving rise to the cycle of cosmic chemical evolution. All this wealth of detail is somehow imprinted in the distribution of abundances in galaxies. The absolute quantities of metals a galaxy (or a region of a galaxy) possesses, the relative abundances of the different elements, and their spatial distribution in a given galaxy are important constraints for the verification of our models and scenarios of the formation and evolution of galaxies.
There are two ways of handling and exploiting this information. One is to derive abundances in galaxies “in situ”, i. e. in galaxies at their different redshifts. In that way, we can observe the gas abundances at the time of the emission of radiation and thus obtain the value of the mean abundances of the gas at a given epoch. The other one is to derive the gas abundances at the present epoc , that is, observing galaxies at redshift zero and then use chemical evolution models to infer their abundances at previous epochs.
Eventually both approaches must converge in a single galaxy formation and evolution scenario. Once that convergence is achieved, the models can be extrapolated back to even earlier times and predictions can be made which can be contrasted with planned observations.
Fecha: 28/11/2024 – 12:30Conferenciante: Profesora Ángeles DíazFiliación: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, España

Sobre supernovas, agujeros negros y cinturones de radiación en enanas marrones
2024-11-28 19:00 - 20:00 | IAA – CSIC, Glorieta de la Astronomía, Granada, España
Muchas veces imágenes obtenidas con técnicas novedosas, y al límite técnico, son cruciales para hacer descubrimientos.
Así fue entre otros casos, y como es bien sabido, para el descubrimiento de la estructura de doble hélice del ADN. También aspectos esenciales de las radioemisiones de las supernovas, los agujeros negros masivos y las enanas marrones se han descubierto a través de imágenes obtenidas con una misma técnica de muy alta resolución angular utilizada cada vez de modo muy distinto y en el límite técnico.
En la charla se abordará de modo conciso lo que es esencial a cada uno de esos descubrimientos que nos han permitido conocer los detalles de la expansión de las supernovas, del entorno de los agujeros negros masivos y de los cinturones de radiación que rodean a las enanas marrones como lo hacen a Júpiter o la Tierra.
Fecha: 28/11/2024 – 19:00Conferenciante: Jon MarcaideFiliación: Real Academia de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales de España

PySnack 9: GASTLI
2024-12-02 09:30 - 13:30 | IAA – CSIC, Glorieta de la Astronomía, Granada, España
PySnacks
Within the Severo Ochoa Training Initiative of the IAA-CSIC we are offering short introductory practical courses about Python packages for astrophysical applications (PySnacks). We invite you to participate in the 4h course PySnack 9: GASTLI
Abstract
Understanding the interior composition of exoplanets is key to uncovering their formation and evolutionary histories, especially their metal content. By comparing observed mass and radius measurements with interior structure and evolution models, we can infer a planet’s metal mass fraction. With the advent of JWST, CHEOPS, TESS, and the upcoming PLATO, we are entering an era of unprecedented precision in exoplanet radius, age, and atmospheric metallicity measurements.
To harness this growing wealth of data, we introduce GASTLI (GAS gianT modeL for Interiors) — a user-friendly, open-source Python package designed to make interior modeling accessible. GASTLI is optimized for rapid computation of mass-radius and radius-luminosity-age relationships and enables interior composition retrievals to fit models to observed mass, radius, age, and, when available, atmospheric metallicity.
Supporting a diverse range of planetary compositions, masses, and irradiation conditions, GASTLI is ideal for modeling planets from warm sub-Neptunes to hot gas giants. It incorporates state-of-the-art thermodynamic data and equations of state for rock, water, and hydrogen/helium, alongside a customizable atmospheric grid feature, ensuring accurate representation of high-pressure planetary envelopes.
This course will be taught by Lorena Acuña (MPIA-Heidelberg).

Experimental ice simulations for the interpretation of ice and organics observations in the Solar System
2024-12-03 12:30 - 13:30 | IAA – CSIC, Glorieta de la Astronomía, Granada, España
The harsh conditions in space (ultra-high vacuum, cryogenic temperatures, and radiation) are simulated in laboratory chambers to study ice properties and processes. UV photons/X-rays/ions impact on the ice covering microscopic dust particles in dense interstellar clouds, comets, icy moons and planetary surfaces. Radiation produces radicals and reactive species changing the initial composition of the ice (made of simple species like water, CO, CO2, CH3OH, NH3, etc) to form complex molecules of prebiotic interest (amino acids, nucleobases, sugars, …) in the laboratory. Many of these molecules were also identified in comets and asteroids.
The ice porosity and degree of order in the structure of these ices may also serve to trace their thermal and radiative history. Infrared spectroscopy is a powerful tool to gather detailed information of ices in space, while mass spectrometry allows to characterize the gas composition. Ice laboratory studies have become essential to prepare new cometary and icy moon missions and to interpret the results delivered by these missions. We will present the application of the ice experiments to the Rosetta mission, Hayabusa 2, JUICE and JWST.
Fecha: 03/12/2024 – 12:30Conferenciante: Dr. Guillermo Muñoz CaroFiliación: Centro de AstroBiología – CSIC

ESERO, from space to the classroom
2024-12-10 12:30 - 13:30 | IAA – CSIC, Glorieta de la Astronomía, Granada, España
With the slogan ‘from space to the classroom’, and building on the fascination that students have for space, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) European Space Education Resource Office in Spain (ESERO Spain) provides resources to primary and secondary school teachers to improve their literacy and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) skills. Using the theme of space as a context for inspiration and motivation, ESERO runs a programme of training and continuous professional development, based on a unique combination of science, technology and teaching expertise. This combination challenges the traditional way science is taught in schools and involves the application of innovative learning methodologies.
Fecha: 10/12/2024 – 12:30Conferenciante: Dr. Manuel GonzálezFiliación: Oficina ESERO Spain

PySnack 10: PROSE
2024-12-12 10:30 - 16:30 | IAA – CSIC, Glorieta de la Astronomía, Granada, España
PySnacks
Within the Severo Ochoa Training Initiative of the IAA-CSIC we are offering short introductory practical courses about Python packages for astrophysical applications (PySnacks). We invite you to participate in the 4h course PySnack 10: PROSE
Abstract
Approximately 75% of known exoplanets have been discovered by identifying transit signals in the light curves of their host stars. These discoveries start with the acquisition of raw images of the sky, followed by the extraction of stellar time-series photometry. In this workshop, we will process ground-based observations of the star TRAPPIST-1 to replicate the detection of its first exoplanet transit using original data from the TRAPPIST telescope. Participants will learn to calibrate raw images and extract TRAPPIST-1’s light curve using prose, a Python package designed for modular image processing in astronomy. Finally, we will apply nuance, a detection algorithm tailored for identifying transits in noisy datasets.
Overall, participants will gain hands-on experience in image calibration, light curve extraction, and transit detection, along with practical skills in using Python tools for astronomical data analysis.

Informative Session for Foreign New Hires
2024-12-12 12:30 - 13:30 | IAA – CSIC, Glorieta de la Astronomía, Granada, España
If you are a foreigner who has recently joined the IAA and have not yet completed all the steps to formalize your residency in Spain, or if you would like to learn about some of the optional bureaucratic procedures that could make things easier for you living here, please join us for this informative session led by the Area of Visitor Assistance.
The session will be held in English and is open to anyone at the IAA who would like to inform themselves on these procedures. Topics covered will include:

Registry and Green Card for EU Citizens
Empadronamiento • TIE Card
Health Card
Digital Certificate/Signature
Electoral Registry for EU Citizens
Finalizing the Doctorate Degree Equivalency with the UGR

Fecha: 12/12/2024 – 12:30Conferenciante: Lauren C. SmithFiliación: Severo Ochoa-IAA Research Support Office. Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía

¿Qué sabemos de nuestra Galaxia después de Gaia?
2024-12-19 19:00 - 20:00 | IAA – CSIC, Glorieta de la Astronomía, Granada, España
En los últimos 11 años, los resultados de la misión Gaia han revolucionado nuestro conocimiento sobre la Vía Láctea, ofreciendo un nivel de detalle sin precedentes. Este observatorio espacial ha cartografiado con extrema precisión las posiciones, movimientos y fotometría de más de mil ochocientos millones de estrellas, proporcionando una visión tridimensional de nuestra galaxia. Gracias a Gaia, ahora entendemos mejor la estructura espiral de la Vía Láctea, los procesos de formación estelar y las interacciones gravitatorias con otras galaxias cercanas.
Los datos han revelado sorprendentes ondulaciones en el disco galáctico, probablemente causadas por encuentros con galaxias satélite como la Sagitario. También han permitido identificar cúmulos estelares, corrientes de estrellas y patrones de movimiento que nos cuentan la historia dinámica de la Galaxia. Además, Gaia ha mejorado significativamente nuestras mediciones de distancias y masas estelares, lo que impacta directamente en una mejor comprensión de la evolución estelar.
En esencia, Gaia no solo ha transformado la astrofísica, sino que ha permitido a la humanidad explorar con mayor claridad su hogar galáctico, abriendo nuevas preguntas y desafíos en nuestra búsqueda por comprender el cosmos.
Fecha: 19/12/2024 – 19:00Conferenciante: Emilio J. AlfaroFiliación: Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía IAA-CSIC

Academic Spanish Course for Foreigners (2025)
2025-01-21 09:00 - 2025-10-30 17:00 | IAA – CSIC, Glorieta de la Astronomía, Granada, España
The Academic Spanish course for foreigners is designed to facilitate effective communication in academic and profesional contexts. Through a practical and personalized focus, the participants will develop essential linguistic abilities to discuss scientific articles, participate in conferences, give presentations, and collaborate in international projects. The program includes technical vocabulary, beginner and advanced grammar, and simulations of real-life situations. Moreover, it will promote the cultural immersion to strengthen the comprehension of the Hispanic world, and their impact on interdisciplinary investigation and collaboration.
This course will be taught throughout in the following blocks:
January 21st – February 27thApril 22nd – May 29thSeptember 23rd – October 30thThe course is taught by Prof. Nazira Ruíz

An Unusual Triple System: CN Lyn
2025-01-21 12:30 - 13:30 | IAA – CSIC, Glorieta de la Astronomía, Granada, España
Triple star systems hold significant astrophysical importance, offering profound insights into stellar evolution, dynamical interactions, and mass transfer processes. Due to their complexity compared to single or binary star systems, triple systems facilitate a more comprehensive understanding of stellar processes from formation to final stages. Thanks to large photometric surveys, such as Kepler, researchers were able to detect triple systems with long periods. Also, the latest studies show that 15% of binaries have a tertiary component. Therefore, studying such objects will lead to results that benefit every aspect of stellar astrophysics. In this talk, I will present our latest study of known but not studied in detail triple star system, CN Lyn, and our findings by combining spectroscopy, photometry, and galactic dynamic techniques.
Fecha: 21/01/2025 – 12:30Conferenciante: Dr. Gökhan YücelFiliación: Department of Astronomy and Space Sciences, Istanbul University, Turkey

Study of the very high energy emission from star-forming regions and young massive star clusters
2025-01-23 12:30 - 13:30 | IAA – CSIC, Glorieta de la Astronomía, Granada, España
Cosmic rays (CRs) are a fundamental component of the Cosmos. They can penetrate and ionise the dense gas core of molecular clouds, affecting the dynamics of the cloud itself and triggering chemical reactions that lead to the creation of complex molecular compounds. In star-forming complexes, CRs can be accelerated by the wind of newly born massive stars, often found in young massive stellar clusters (YMSC). The amount of freshly injected CRs can be probed by the observations of high-energy and very-high-energy gamma-rays. In this regard, the future Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO) will play a crucial role. CTAO will be composed of around 100 telescopes deployed on two sites, one in Northern and one in the Southern Hemisphere. The arrays will cover a wide energy range from tens of GeV to hundreds of TeV employing telescopes of three sizes: the Large, Medium and Small Sized Telescopes with 23 m, 14 m and 4.5 m mirror diameters, respectively. Each telescope is optimized for the detection of photons below 1 TeV (LST), between 1-10 TeV (MST) and above 10 TeV (SST). The first LST prototype, LST-1, is currently ending its commissioning phase and is starting to collect scientific data. During the present observational cycle, two observational proposals on YMSC were submitted for the very first time. These observations are challenging due to the extension of the expected gamma-ray emission from YMSC and to the limited Field of View (FoV) of the Cherenkov telescopes (around 2.3° radius for LST-1). In this context is of paramount importance to optimise the reconstruction analysis chain (currently under development) for extended sources and to rank the best targets for the next observational campaigns both of LST-1 and of the upcoming 3 LSTs currently under construction at the CTAO-Northern site.
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Fecha: 23/01/2025 – 12:30Conferenciante: Dr. Gaia VernaFiliación: Università degli Studi di Siena, Italy

El crecimiento de la complejidad en el Universo
2025-01-28 12:30 - 13:30 | IAA – CSIC, Glorieta de la Astronomía, Granada, España
La existencia de vida es uno de los grandes problemas cosmológicos. Aunque la vida sea un hecho observado en un único planeta, el proceso de complejización que supone, debe obedecer a leyes generales universales. Varios autores claman por una “missing law” termodinámica, a la búsqueda de la cual se incorpora la hipótesis que presentamos aquí. El surgimiento y la evolución de la vida son resultado del mismo principio. Se deduce que la complejidad crea complejidad, lo que potencia los mecanismos evolutivos. Esta teoría no se presenta como alternativa a la teoría darwiniana, sino como un necesario complemento.​
Fecha: 28/01/2025 – 12:30Conferenciante: Dr. Eduardo BattanerFiliación: Universidad de Granada, Spain

SO Colloquium: Modelling of large-scale magnetic field in low-mass stars
2025-01-30 12:00 - 13:00 | IAA – CSIC, Glorieta de la Astronomía, Granada, España
Recent spectropolarimetric observations of low-mass stars show that large-scale components of their magnetic fields can exhibit cyclic variations or reversals. This magnetic activity affects detection of exoplanets and estimation of their masses, and so its modelling is particularly important. In convective stellar envelopes, magnetic fields are created through dynamo action – systematic stretching and twisting of magnetic field lines by helical convective vortices. It is yet however unclear how low-mass stars, with their strong convective turbulence and relatively slow rotation, are able to maintain coherent large-scale magnetic activity. In this talk, I will discuss the physical mechanisms that allow magnetic flux to accumulate at large scales in both turbulent and strongly stratified models of stellar convection. In such models, a highly turbulent convective layer is formed at the surface while the deep flow interiors remain rotationally constrained. Using direct numerical simulations of such flows, I will show that small-scale magnetic flux, generated by small-scale turbulence in the outer flow regions with low density, is systematically transported into more quiescent inner regions by global magnetic pumping mechanism. Consequently, the dipolarity of the field at the surface of the domain increases both with enhancement of turbulence and stratification. I will also explore the mechanisms of destabilization of magnetic fields resulting in magnetic reversals, and their dynamical interactions with zonal flows; finally, I will discuss the impact of differential rotation on magnetic fields during star formation. Both processes could be responsible for diversity of magnetic topology and activity patterns observed in low-mass stars.
Fecha: 30/01/2025 – 12:00Conferenciante: Dr. Anna GusevaFiliación: Observatoire de Paris, France.

La Tierra que acunó la vida: el papel de la sílice
2025-01-30 19:00 - 20:00 | IAA – CSIC, Glorieta de la Astronomía, Granada, España
En esta conferencia exploraremos los nichos geoquímicos de la Tierra primitiva que pudieron albergar la transición de la geoquímica inorgánica a la geoquímica orgánica, y de ahí a la química prebiotica y la emergencia de la complejidad que derivaría en las primeras estructuras similares a la vida.
Desvelaremos el papel crucial de los minerales, en especial de la sílice, en la autoorganización mineral y en la catálisis heterogénea de la química prebiótica. Y discutiremos la relevancia de esos resultados experimentales en el origen de la vida y en la detección de vida primitiva terrestre y extraterrestre.
El Dr. Juan Manuel García-Ruiz, es Profesor Ikerbasque en el Donostia International Physics Center y Profesor de Investigación ad-honorem en el Instituto Andaluz de Ciencias de la Tierra en el CSIC. Lidera actualmente el proyecto ERC-Synergy “El papel del sílice en el amanecer de la vida en nuestro Planeta”.
Fecha: 30/01/2025 – 19:00Conferenciante: Juan Manuel García-RuizFiliación: Donostia International Physics Center e IACT-CSIC

Resolving Stellar Angular Diameters with Asteroid Occultations
2025-01-31 12:30 - 13:00 | IAA – CSIC, Glorieta de la Astronomía, Granada, España
Occultations have been used for measuring stellar angular diameters since 1936 when French astronomy M. A. Arnulf measured the radius of Regulus during a lunar occultation. Since then, astronomers have used lunar occultations to measure the angular diameters of hundreds of bright stars m≤5. The technique of measuring an angular diameter using lunar occultations is based on the diffraction of light around the limb of the moon. With this technique, stars down to 1 milliarcsecond could be resolved. In 2018, the ground-based gamma-ray observatory VERITAS detected two asteroid occultations. By imaging the diffraction pattern produced during the ingress and egress of the occultation, VERITAS measured at that time the smallest stellar angular diameter ever recorded of the G IV star TYC 278-748-1 (0.094+0.009 −0.010 mas). Currently, several other stars have also had angular diameters measured. This presentation details the technique, current analysis, and some preliminary results for stellar angular diameters
Fecha: 31/01/2025 – 12:30Conferenciante: Joshua BartkoskeFiliación: University of Utah, USA

Element Abundances and the Chemical Evolution of the Cosmos
2025-02-03 09:30 - 2025-02-20 23:00 | IAA – CSIC, Glorieta de la Astronomía, Granada, España
The course will be taught in seven sessions of 1.5 hours each.

27 Jan 2025: Cosmic elemental abundances. Data sources. Stellar abundances. Nebular abundances.
29 Jan 2025: Primordial nucleosynthesis and abundances of the light elements.
3 Feb 2025: Outline of stellar structure and evolution.
5 Feb 2025: Stellar nucleosynthesis and principles of galactic chemical evolution.
10 Feb 2025: Specific models of galactic chemical evolution and comparison with availabledata.
12 Feb 2025: The chemical evolution of external galaxies.
17 Feb 2025: Element abundances at high redshifts and cosmic chemical evolution.

This course is taught by Professor Ángeles I. Díaz (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid)
