English (UK)
December 18th 2017
Since 2016, German and Spanish researchers are hunting for planets with the Carmenes spectrograph. They have now discovered their first star with an exoplanet.
The star is a so-called M-dwarf only about half as massive as the Sun, its planet with the name HD 147379b is slightly more massive than Neptune. HD 147379b orbits its star once every 86 days at a distance that is only a third of the distance between Earth and the Sun. At this location, the planet is located inside the so-called habitable zone where water could exist in liquid form. However, it is unlikely that life could develop on this planet because it probably has no solid surface.
November 22nd 2017
The Monitoring Commission of the agreement signed with the "Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad" for the execution of the "MIOCA-Mejora del Instrumental del Observatorio de Calar Alto" project, was set up.
The project’s budget of 1.129.098 €, will allow consolidate the competitiveness of Calar Alto Observatory.
The Spanish-German Astronomical Center (CAHA) has the purpose of the management, maintenance, operation and scientific exploitation of the Calar Alto Observatory, making it available to the international astronomical community, as well as giving the capacity and the infrastructure needed for carrying out astronomical observation programs and developing innovative concepts concerning instrumentation. Now, CAHA faces up an improvement of its instrumentation in order to continue at the forefront of the astronomical observation.
October 4th 2017
CARMENES, a spectrograph that operates in both visible and infrared channels, operating at Calar Alto Observatory (Almería), study a three hundred stars sample in order to find similar to Earth planets.
The first results of its visible channel, derived from the study of seven planetary systems, show its perfect functioning.
CARMENES instrument, developed by a consortium of eleven institutions from Germany and Spain, and co-lead by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC), with the participation of the Institut de Ciències de l’Espai (IEEE-CSIC) and the Centro de Astrobiología (CAB, CSIC-INTA), has been designed for searching earth like planets within the habitability zone or area that surrounds a star where the conditions allow the existence of liquid water. The first results, obtained with the Calar Alto Observatory 3.5m telescope and published today, analyze seven known planetary systems and proves its excellent performing.
September 12th 2017
Researchers from the Theoretical Physics and Cosmos department of Granada University (UGR, Spain) lead a study which gives new details about the formation process of the structure of our galaxy, the Milky Way.This study is based on data obtained at Calar Alto.
Granada University astronomer Isabel Pérez lead a series of observational studies which show the distribution and characteristics of the stars in barred spiral galaxies like the Milky Way, giving new insights on the formation process of this kind of galaxies.
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