Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s most famous character, the Little Prince, lived on a volcanic asteroid whose volcanoes the Prince took care of. But real asteroids are seldom volcanic. Or are they? There are reasons to think that these objects should not be so scarce after all. Recent studies based on Calar Alto data are helping to unveil the existence of more of these volcanic tiny worlds, some of them with exotic and puzzling traits…

Andalusia has just created the first network of institutions devoted to science communication existing in Spain. This network was born on December 12th, 2007, under de auspices of the Junta de Andalucía (the regional government of the autonomous community Andalusia), and Calar Alto Observatory is one of its founder members...

The quality of the night sky at Calar Alto Observatory has been extensively analysed using many different observational techniques and with data gathered between 2004 and 2007. The conclusions indicate that Calar Alto is a dark site with a considerable fraction of useful nights for astronomical observation. The sharpness of the images (what astronomers call “the seeing”) and the overall properties of the night sky at Calar Alto place this observatory among the best sites for astronomical observations...