News

23 December, 202522 December, 2025

Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço is paving the way for research that will open new windows onto the Universe

The MOONS spectrograph, now en route to the Paranal Observatory in Chile, will use newly developed tools recently created by researchers at the Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço Read more

21 October, 2025

NewAthena space telescope will reveal the primordial Universe

Using modern cosmological simulations, a team led by researchers from the Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço (IA) has predicted that ESA’s future X-ray observatory will detect an unprecedented number of supermassive black holes at the edge of the Universe Read more

15 September, 202515 September, 2025

Black hole with off-the-chart growth discovered in the early Universe

Observed by a team, that includes several researchers from the Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço (IA), this black hole—containing a billion solar masses—has a growth rate 2.4 times above the expected limit for this type of object Read more

29 July, 202528 July, 2025

First scientific results from the NIRPS spectrograph

More than 140 experts contributed to the project of this new infrared spectrograph, including several Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço (IA) researchers Read more

1 July, 20251 July, 2025

PLATO space mission gets closer to space

This European Space Agency mission, with strong involvement from the Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço, reached a major milestone Read more

Activities

Upcoming activities

We are planning new activities for you. Donʼt miss our regular programme subscribing to the monthly newsletter (in Portuguese).

Past activities

30 June - 18 July, 2025 Online

Online

Cartaz do programa de estágios de verão do IA

IA Summer Program 2025

How for do you dare to go? IA Summer Program is your gateway to Space. Targeted at university students. From June 30 till July 18. Applications due by May 26.

Free entrance

4 June, 2025 Porto

Planetário do Porto - CCV

À descoberta do lado negro do Universo com o telescópio EUCLID

Public talk in Portuguese, given by Pedro Carrilho (University of Hertfordshire), taking place at 18:00 on Wednesday 4 June, in the Porto planetarium. This talk is open to all, and the admission is free, subject to the venue's capacify.

Free entrance

Resources and Contents

O disco da Via Láctea fotografado no deserto do Atacama, no Chile

100 years ago, the Milky Way was displaced from the centre of the Universe

Precisely a century ago, the New York Times newspaper announced that the Andromeda nebula was after all another “island universe”, so big or even bigger than the Milky Way. The Universe had just increased tenfold. Read more

26 November, 202426 November, 2024

Representação artística do exoplaneta K2-18b, mais pequeno que Neptuno, um planeta recentemente observado pelo telescópio espacial James Webb

On breezes never before sailed

With more than five thousand planets already discovered in orbit of other stars, scientists are now launching a new era of surprising discoveries about the exotic atmospheres of these distant worlds. Article by Tomás Silva in National Geographic Portugal. Read more

14 November, 202426 November, 2024

Most detailed map of our galaxy in infrared

Thirteen years of observations led to the most detailed map of Milky Way. Nanda Kumar, an IA collaborator, talked to the podcast Palavra de Cientista about it. Read more

14 November, 2024

Conceção artística de um planeta nómada, ou errante, com a nebulosa NGC 1333 apresentada em fundo. Os planetas errantes, n

In search of the planets that are truly wanderers

They are worlds much like planets, but not towed to a star. Were they born in a cradle of stars, or are they planets thrown out from their orbits and left to their own fortune? Article by Koraljka Mužić in National Geographic Portugal. Read more

14 October, 202426 November, 2024

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The Universe at everyone's reach