English (UK)
Almería, 20 March 2025
PANIC (PAnoramic Near-Infrared Camera for Calar Alto) is a wide-field near-infrared camera for the 2.2-meter telescope at Calar Alto Observatory, developed jointly by the Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie (MPIA) in Heidelberg, Germany, and the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC) in Granada, Spain.
Its four original detectors have been replaced by a large monolithic HAWAII-4RG™ detector of 4096x4096 pixels or “4K” which provides a field of view of 26 × 26 arcminutes (nearly the apparent size of the full moon). PANIC covers the near-infrared wavelength range (from 0.8 to 2.5 microns), being a very versatile instrument that can be used to study clusters, galaxies, nebulae, stars, exoplanets, and even the smallest bodies of the Solar System.
Almería, February 3rd 2025
Thanks to multiple observations performed at Calar Alto, a European research team, led from Centro de Astrobiología (INTA-CSIC) in Madrid, makes public the first planetary system discovered in the framework of the KOBE project.
KOBE uses data from the CARMENES instrument, mounted on the CAHA 3.5 m telescope, to monitor since 2021 about 50 orange dwarf stars, which are somewhat smaller and less hot than our Sun. Due to their characteristics, orange dwarf stars are el Dorado (sweet spot) of the search for life beyond the Solar System, and this first KOBE discovery paths the way to new ones.
Almería, August 22nd 2024
A new research led from the Centro de Astrobiología in Madrid (CAB, INTA-CSIC) has revised a previous study from NASA that had claimed the discovery, by the transit method alone, of an exoplanet orbiting the star K2-399.
Using more complete observations, including those taken from Calar Alto with CARMENES, the new research concludes that the detected transits, those mini-eclipses, are not due to a planet but to a pair of red dwarf stars orbiting K2-399, while eclipsing each other, which perfectly mimics a typical exoplanetary transit. This case reminds us that revision based on new data, and where appropriate, correction of previous results, is the basis of the scientific method.
Almeria, July 15th, 2024
The CAVITY international project, led from the University of Granada and based on three-dimensional (3D) images taken at Calar Alto, publishes a sample of 100 galaxies located in the so-called "voids", the most uninhabited areas of the Universe. These galaxies represent a pristine population, a reference sample for multiple cosmological studies.
The two-dimensional (2D) spectra obtained with the PMAS instrument on the 3.5 m telescope for CAVITY are made freely available to the public today at https://cavity.caha.es. CAVITY is one of three major ongoing legacy programs at Calar Alto, the largest optical observatory on the Old Continent.
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