ASTEROID RYUGU ARRIVES AT INTA

A team led by INTA scientists, together with UAH, CIEMAT and the University of Tokyo, has obtained a sample of the asteroid Ryugu from the Japanese space agency (JAXA) for one year after passing an international competitive phase. It will be used to study the prebiotic chemistry of the origins of the Solar System using […]

The oldest known ‘dead’ galaxy detected with the James Webb Space Telescope.

An international team of researchers with the participation of the Centro de Astrobiología (CAB, CSIC-INTA), a joint center of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) and the Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial (INTA), has discovered a dead galaxy only 700 million years after the Big Bang. JADES-GS-z7-01-QU is the oldest observed galaxy of its […]

DART Impact likely reshaped Dimorphos

The global reshaping of the asteroid Dimorphos could be a result of the impact caused by NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), as suggested in a recent publication in Nature Astronomy, in which two researchers from CAB, Jens Ormö and Isabel Herreros, are coauthors. This discovery hints at the possibility that Dimorphos is essentially a […]

International Day of Women and Girls in Science 2024

This year, we want to show you a short but very important video to convey a message to celebrate this important day. We would like to see a future where the need for a day like this fades away as soon as possible. A future where our society and scientific system show greater equality of […]

New “cola de gato” structure discovered with JWST

A recent study by an international team led by a researcher from the Centro de Astrobiología (CAB), CSIC-INTA, has discovered a new structure in the disc of Beta Pictoris. Observations with the Webb Space Telescope have revealed this cat-tail dust structure in the best-studied debris disc.

Group Achievement Award 2024 for the JWST MIRI instrument

The Royal Astronomical Society has awarded the 2024 Group Achievement Award to the international team that developed the MIRI instrument for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which includes CAB scientists and INTA engineers.  The RAS citation acknowledges the impressive achievement of successfully completing the development of this complex and lengthy project, and its culmination […]

Ammonia trail leads to exoplanets

En un reciente estudio, liderado por el Centro de Astrobiología (CAB), CSIC-INTA, un equipo de investigadores de diversos institutos europeos y norteamericanos ha logrado medir el amoníaco en la atmósfera de una estrella enana marrón fría. La abundancia isotópica del amoníaco puede utilizarse para estudiar cómo se forman los planetas gaseosos gigantes. Las relaciones entre […]

Observada turbulencia nocturna en el cráter Jezero (Marte)

Un reciente estudio, liderado por el Centro de Astrobiología (CAB), CSIC-INTA, ha evidenciado la presencia de turbulencia atmosférica nocturna en el cráter Jezero(Marte), donde se encuentra el rover Perseverance de NASA. Los datos del instrumento español MEDA (Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer)adquiridos durante la mitad de un año marciano, y las simulaciones llevadas a cabo conel […]

Discovery of carbonic acid in space, first interstellar molecule with three oxygen atoms

An international team led by the Centre for Astrobiology (CAB, CSIC-INTA) has discovered the presence of carbonic acid in space, the first interstellar molecule with more than three oxygen atoms and the third carboxylic acid detected to date. Its detection represents a leap in the understanding of interstellar chemical complexity, which may have played a […]

Does this planet have a sibling sharing the same orbit?

A study led by the Centro de Astrobiología (CAB), CSIC-INTA, has found what may be the most robust evidence that pairs of planets can form by sharing a path around their star. In the orbital path of one of the two youngest known planets, PDS 70 b, a dust cloud up to twice the mass […]

Stranger galaxies: how do galaxies detected by JWST look like?

A recent study led by Centro de Astrobiología (CAB), CSIC-INTA, researchers have studied in detail previously unknown galaxies discovered by JWST, finding that the early Universe was much more active forming stars than expected. The JWST is providing many surprises to astronomers. Among them, a new paper that just appeared in The Astrophysical Journal Letters […]

The lonely giants: Do the most massive stars live alone?

New research published posthumously by lead author Dr Simon Clark from the Open University in the UK demonstrates, for the first time, that the most massive stars known are not as lonely as previously thought. Instead, they are mainly found in binary systems with companion stars. Massive stars live violent lives: they continuously expel material […]

Astronomy: Assessing the impact of the DART mission

International teams, with the participation of the Centro de Astrobiología (CAB), CSIC-INTA, publish today in Nature the results of the first observations of NASA’s DART mission. Understanding how the impact of the DART spacecraft modified the orbit of the asteroid Dimorphos will help in the development of strategies and defense systems against possible collisions of […]

CARMENES project boosts the number of known planets in the solar neighbourhood

20,000 observations from the Calar Alto telescope are made public, and have led to the discovery of 59 planets, some of them potentially habitable. The CARMENES survey is led by a consortium of Spanish and German institutions. The instrument has proven to be a success and will continue to provide information on small cool stars […]

CAB participates in the scientific planning of the Mars Sample Return mission

The Center for Astrobiology (CAB, CSIC-INTA)) will host a meeting between February 20 and 24, 2023 of the international group for the scientific planning of the “Mars Sample Return Mission”, the MCSG (for its acronym in English, Mars sample return Campaign Science Group). The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the European Space Agency […]

Two Earths in “habitable” orbits around a nearby star

An international team of astrophysicists with the participation of three researchers from Centro de Astrobiología (CAB), CSIC-INTA, announces the discovery of two possibly rocky planets in the habitable zone of the star GJ 1002, a red dwarf located barely 16 light-years away from the solar system. Rocky planets like the Earth are the norm, rather […]

WEAVE First Light: a new window into the Universe

WEAVE First Light The Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes (ING) and the WEAVE instrument team present first-light observations with the WEAVE spectrograph. WEAVE is a powerful, next-generation multi-fibre spectrograph on the William Herschel Telescope (WHT) at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos (La Palma, Canary Islands) now being commissioned on-sky and already generating high-quality […]

Experiments in preparation for the defense against future Earth-threatening asteroids

A recent study led by the Centro de Astrobiología (CAB), CSIC-INTA, forms a vital part in the preparations for the NASA’s mission DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test), that will impact the asteroid Dimorphos on the 27th of September. This mission aims to test the concept of a kinetic impactor to deflect an eventual future Earth-threatening […]

The best studied terrestrial planet outside the Solar System

An international scientific team led by astronomers from the Centro de Astrobiología (CAB), CSIC-INTA, has measured the mass and radius of an Earth-like exoplanet with unprecedented accuracy, allowing them to make robust predictions on the structure and composition of its interior and atmosphere. The detailed analysis is announced today by the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. […]

Escape from Bermuda: The ejection of its massive stars leaves a stellar cluster orphan

A recent study ed by the Centro de Astrobiología (CAB, CSIC-INTA) has discovered that a young stellar cluster has expelled most of its recently formed massive stars. The stellar ejections took place in three close encounters between several of them that happened 1.9, 1.6 y 1,5 million years (Ma) ago, respectively. If this phenomenon is […]

The dramatic final dance of the stars with a common envelope

Centro de Astrobiología (CAB, CSIC-INTA) participates in the study of fifteen peculiar stars which turned out to be double stars that, after sharing an envelope, lost most of their mass. Unlike the Sun, most stars form binary systems, in which two stars revolve around a common center. Sometimes the distance between the two is so […]

20th SVO school- Virtual Observatory Tools

The Spanish Virtual Observatory (SVO [1]) is an initiative whose main goal is to promote, coordinate and develop the activities related to the Virtual Observatory (VO) in Spain. In this context, one of the main tasks of the SVO has been the organization of schools and workshops aiming at disseminating the possibilities that the Virtual […]

The most distant galaxy similar to the Milky Way discovered with JWST

An international team, led by the Centro de Astrobiología (CAB), CSIC-INTA, has discovered the most distant barred spiral galaxy similar to the Milky Way observed to date. The discovery, made possible thanks to the extraordinary capabilities of the James Webb Space Telescope, has been published in the Nature journal. 08-11-2023 We believed that barred spiral […]

Dwarfs and the first galaxies: diesel or jerky?

Astronomers from the Centro de Astrobiología (CAB, CSIC-INTA), in collaboration with researchers from the UK, Mexico and Chile, are searching for clues about the origins of the first stars and structures formed in the Universe. For that purpose, they are using data from the most ambitious project carried out with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) […]

New exhibition “AstrónomAs” opens its doors

The exhibition ‘AstrónomAs’ focuses on the contribution of women who have worked and continue to work in this scientific discipline. The digital version includes information on 270 female astronomers and their areas of research, along with other downloadable educational materials, interactive games, podcasts and videos. The exhibition is complemented by a smaller traveling version in […]

Víctor Rivilla and Eduardo Cueto win the award for best virtual poster 2021 from EANA

Centro de Astrobiología researchers Víctor Rivilla (Interstellar and Circumstellar Medium Group) and Eduardo Cueto (Prebiotic Chemistry Group) have won the 2021 Poster Award of the European Astrobiology Network Association (EANA) with two posters presenting two articles which also involve other CAB researchers. The award was presented to the authors on Friday 10 September, by André […]

CAB scientists put star formation mechanisms to the test

disco_protoplanetario

An international scientific team led by Centro de Astrobiología (CAB, CSIC-INTA) has used the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) VLTI interferometer to observe the innermost parts of a sample of protoplanetary discs and test current models of star formation. Young stars are surrounded by disc-shaped structures whose material, gas and dust, “feeds” the central star, leading […]

CAB receives the EANA 20th Anniversary Outstanding Paper Award in Astrobiology

A multidisciplinary team from Centro de Astrobiología has won the European Astrobiology Network Association (EANA) award to the most outstanding research paper published during 2020. The award will be presented to the authors today, Friday 10 September, by André Brack, chairman of the jury and first President of EANA, and the current President of EANA, […]

CAB – “María de Maeztu” fosters transdisciplinary projects led by young researchers

The María de Maeztu Academy of the Centro de Astrobiología closed the 2020-2021 academic year on June 15 with the final of the first edition of the transdisciplinary challenges. The winning team was that of the Biomarkers objective, formed by the CAB and INTA researchers: Jorge Lillo-Box, Patricia Cruz, David Ruano Gallego, Mercedes Moreno-Paz, Alberto […]