Recent Talks

EMIR, the NIR camera and multiobject spectrograph of the GTC has just completed successfully its commissioning phase in telescope, after a very long development, construction and testing at the IAC. Very recently, the call for proposals for the Scientific Verification Phase of EMIR has been launched by GRANTECAN. Hence, it is now timely to describe the instrument as a whole, its expected performances and the main results of the commissioning periods, together with its planned run at the GTC. This seminar is aimed at covering all these aspects and will include also some prescriptions of the use of the observing tools to prepare EMIR proposals. Suggestions on the optimal use of the instrument in its present status as well as known problems discovered up to now will complete the content of this talk.

As of today, we know now more than 3000 planets orbiting other stars. The detection of planets through radial velocity gathers special attention in the world of exoplanet characterization, as this technique will probably allow us to detect and characterize the first Earth-mass planet inside the habitable zone of a neighbouring star. In this talk I will discuss the ongoing efforts for developing state-of-the art spectrographs that permit the detection of an Earth twin, and discuss one of the most formidable obstacles to the detection of planetary signals: stellar activity. While for several years planetary surveys simply avoided active stars, today we know that the presence of extrasolar planets around a star might suppress stellar activity as we measure it, or even boost it. I will present the current view of the intricate relationship between exoplanets and activity, and discuss some of the latest works on the topic.

En marzo de 106 AD el Reino Nabateo fue anexado por el emperador Trajano creando la nueva provincia de Arabia (Petraea). Nabatea y su antigua capital, la ciudad rosa de Petra, ha sido uno de nuestros objetivos de investigación desde nuestra primera campaña de campo en la región en 1996, hace ahora 20 años. En 2011 se llevó a cabo una campaña intensiva que deparó resultados muy sugerentes. En diciembre de 2015 se realizó una nueva visita a la zona en coincidencia con el solsticio de invierno. Se observaron y documentaron varios efectos de iluminación e importantes hierofanías en los principales monumentos de Petra. Estos hallazgos se han contrastado a la luz de las fuentes literarias y epigráficas y del simbolismo astronómico, En este sentido, como colofón, se ha analizado en detalle una de las piezas más fascinantes y enigmáticas del mundo nabateo, el llamado zodiaco de Khirbet et-Tannur, encontrado en un templo construido en la cima del Djebel Tannur en el Siglo II d.C. posiblemente bajo gobierno romano, y que ha supuesto un cambio de paradigma en nuestra forma de ver y comprender la civilización nabatea.

The IAC is part of the  Southeastern Association for Research in Astronomy (SARA), a consortium of colleges and universities in the US partnered with Lowell Observatory, the Chilean National Telescope Allocation Committee, and the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias.

In this seminar I will describe the remote facilities operated by the SARA observatories that comprise a 0.96m telescope at Kitt Peak, Arizona; a 0.6m instrument on Cerro Tololo, Chile; and the 1m Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope at the ORM. All are operated using standard VNC or Radmin protocols communicating with on-site PCs. Remote operation offers considerable flexibility in scheduling, allowing long-term observational cadences difficult to achieve with classical observing at remote facilities. Multiple observers at different locations can share a telescope for training, educational use, or collaborative research programs. Each telescope has a CCD system for optical imaging, using thermoelectric cooling to avoid the need for frequent local service, and a second CCD for offset guiding. SARA Kitt Peak telescope also has a fiber-fed echelle spectrograph. Switching between imaging and spectroscopy is very rapid, so a night can easily accommodate mixed observing modes.

The IAC astronomers started to use SARA facilities since early 2016 and a new call for proposals is open. I will present some early results from IAC’s observational programs and discuss the present status of the facilities and the experience obtained by the IAC users that could help new potential observers to prepare their own proposals.

The Major Atmospheric Gamma-ray Imaging Cherenkov (MAGIC) telescopes reported the discovery of the most distant gamma-ray source ever observed at very high energies, thanks to the “replay” of an enormous flare by a galactic gravitational lens as foreseen by Einstein’s General Relativity. QSO B0218+357 is a gravitationally lensed blazar located at a redshift of 0.944. The gravitational lensing splits the emitted radiation into two components separated by a 10–12 day delay. In July 2014, QSO B0218+357 experienced a violent flare observed by the Fermi-LAT and followed by the MAGIC telescopes. The spectral energy distribution of QSO B0218+357 can give information on the energetics of z ~ 1 very high energy gamma-ray sources. Moreover the gamma-ray emission can also be used as a probe of the extragalactic background light at z ~ 1. MAGIC performed observations of QSO B0218+357 during the expected arrival time of the delayed component of the emission. The MAGIC and Fermi-LAT observations were accompanied by quasi-simultaneous optical data from the KVA telescope and X-ray observations by Swift-XRT. We construct a multiwavelength spectral energy distribution of QSO B0218+357 and use it to model the source. The GeV and sub-TeV data obtained by Fermi-LAT and MAGIC are used to set constraints on the extragalactic background light. Very high energy gamma-ray emission was detected from the direction of QSO B0218+357 by the MAGIC telescopes during the expected time of arrival of the trailing component of the flare, making it the farthest very high energy gamma-ray source detected to date. The combined MAGIC and Fermi-LAT spectral energy distribution of QSO B0218+357 is consistent with current extragalactic background light models. The broadband emission can be modeled in the framework of a two-zone external Compton scenario, where the GeV emission comes from an emission region in the jet, located outside the broad line region.

Work published in A&A 595, A98 (2016) ( http://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/abs/2016/11/aa29461-16/aa29461-16.html)

https://magic.mpp.mpg.de/outsiders/results/magic-highlights-5/

http://www.iac.es/divulgacion.php?op1=16&id=1133

The seminar addresses three main topics : (1) Interpretation of astronomical content in funerary texts of the 3rd millenium BC, suggesting a division of the starry sky in a southern and northern part, divided by a canal. – (2) Comparison of two theories of the Egyptian year, i.e. the traditional theory of the Egyptian 365 day vague year as deduced from observation of the heliacal risings of Sirius and Otto Neugebauer’s alternative theory of an averaged Nile year. – (3) The absolute chronology of the 8th century B.C. on the basis of dates for a specific cultic feast and introductions of the Apis bull, both events being fixed within the lunar month. These points are basic for understanding Egyptian worldview and chronology.

Series: XXVIII Canary Islands Winter School of Astrophysics: Solar System Exploration

Topic: Origin and Early Evolution of the Solar System

Lecture 1: Our Understanding of the Solar System through Ages.

This is the first lecture of Dr. Crida, where he gives a historic overview on the improvement of our knowledge on the planets and satellites. He also provides some basic concepts related to celestial mechanics in order to properly follow the rest of his lectures.  

Series: XXVIII Canary Islands Winter School of Astrophysics: Solar System Exploration

Topic: Exploration of the Solar System by the European Space Agency

Lecture 2: European exploration of Mars

In this second talk Dr. Cardesín reviews the ESA program for Mars exploration, describing the Mars Express mission and its scientific goals, as well as the ExoMars mission and its current status. 

Series: XXVIII Canary Islands Winter School of Astrophysics: Solar System Exploration

Topic: Cometary Science and the Rosetta Mission.

Lecture 2: Rosetta, a voyage to a comet and to our origins.

In this second talk, Dr. Küppers gives an overview of the Rosetta mission, from its launch in 2004 until the end of the mission, in September 2016, only a month before the celebration of this Winter School. The talk includes information on the instruments on-board the spacecraft, the two fly-byes to asteroids Steins and Lutetia, and the results obtained from the observations of comet 67P/C-G.