Press releases

Two exoplanets in the top-10 for follow-up characterization of their atmospheres

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15 June 2022

An international team led by a researcher from the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC) has found two telluric planets orbiting, while partially eclipsing, the nearby dwarf star HD 260655.

The discovery was made combining space- and multiple ground-based facilities, in particular the CARMENES spectrograph at the Calar Alto 3.5 m telescope. These two newly found hot super-Earths are among the top 10 candidates for follow-up studies of their atmospheres.

In the last 30 years, over 5000 planets have been discovered outside our Solar System. Still, only a small fraction of these exoplanets were found to be telluric, that is, rocky, like Mercury, Venus, the Earth, and Mars.

Combining data from the CARMENES spectrograph at Calar Alto and from the NASA TESS satellite, among others, a team of astronomers led by Rafael Luque (Institute of Astrophysics

					
						TARSIS, the next generation instrument for the Calar Alto 3.5-meter telescope					
							
Almería (Spain), May 24th, 2022
UCM and IAA-CSIC co-lead TARSIS, the future instrument for the 3.5 m telescope at Calar Alto. TARSIS has unique characteristics, in particular its capacity to detect near ultraviolet light and its unprecedented field of view, along with an ambitious observational survey of galaxy clusters (CATARSIS) tailored to it. TARSIS and CATARSIS will maintain the largest optical telescope in the European mainland at the forefront of astronomy.

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						A new optical technology Made in Spain to detect SARS-Cov-2					
							
Almería (Spain), February 18th, 2022
A team of Spanish researchers, coordinated by the University of Seville, with participation of Calar Alto Observatory and the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC), was able to detect the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 using a new optical methodology. This tool could be potentially usable for massive, fast and easy-to implement screening.
A multidisciplinary collaboration, whose first results are published in the journal Scientific Reports, from the Nature Group, has obtained a sensitivity of 100% and a specificity of 87.5% in the detection of SARS-CoV-2 in nasopharyngeal exudate (the same samples used in a PCR test) from symptomatic people. It has also been possible to detect the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in fresh saliva of asymptomatic people, as well as to detect, differentiate and quantify two types of synthetic viruses (lentiviruses and synthetic coronaviruses) in two biofluids (saline solution and artificial saliva).

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						Re-encounter with a planetary nebula nearly 30 years later					
							
January 13th 2022
The Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC) leads a study based on data from Calar Alto Observatory (CAHA), showing the variability of the planetary nebula IC4997. The changes can be seen comparing observations taken nearly 30 years apart with the CAHA 2.2-meter telescope. This suggests that the central star of this planetary nebula probably hides a companion star. 
Planetary nebulae represent one of the final stages in the life of low- and intermediate-mass stars, similar to the Sun. After exhausting their fuel, the outer layers of such stars are taken off, forming a fluorescent envelope around a white dwarf star (the "naked" core of the star after the expulsion of its outer layers). In some tens of thousands of years, the nebula will disperse in the interstellar medium and the central star will become extinct, so that all planetary nebulae are expected to be (very slowly) variable. However, some of them present a variability unrelated to their natural evolution, which reveals processes that deviate from the norm. This is the case of IC4997, a nebula with which a Spanish team led by the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC) has found itself again, thirty years later.

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