Gi ant s t hat watch t he sky The Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) It is currently the largest and one of the most advanced infrared optical telescopes in the world . It is found in one of the best locations in the Northern Hemisphere, the Roque de los Muchachos Obser vator y (La Palma , Islas Canarias). Its primar y mirror consists of 36 hexagonal segments acting together as a single mirror with a diameter of 10.4 metres. Thanks to its large mirror and advanced engineering, the GTC is among the best performing telescopes for astronomical research . In its first twelve years of obser vation , the GTC has allowed us to see the cosmos as never before. There is almost no type of astronomical object that the GTC has not explored with its obser vations: extrasolar planets, evolved stars, black holes, primitive stars, magnetic fields in the centre of the galaxy, faint galaxies, dark matter, gravitational lenses, and highly energetic explosive events, among others. IAC Bulletin (Adapted) “The scientific results obtained with the GTC,” says Rafael Rebolo, current director of the IAC, “are exceptional, not only for the quantity of data obtained and scientific articles published, but also for their quality and impact. In its work carrying out frontier science, certain observations stand out, such as the detection of the galaxy UG00180, at a distance of 500 million light years, whose images are the deepest taken of any galaxy from the Earth.” He is the founder of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and its first director. He promoted and developed the GTC project. Several institutions from Mexico and the University of Florida (USA) collaborate with this Spanish project. The IAC includes the Obser vator y on La Palma and the Teide Obser vator y on Tenerife. They contain the largest collection of optical and infrared facilities for astrophysics inside the European Union . Franc i s co Sánchez 1936. Toledo. Spain Astrophysicist The GTC had i t s fi rst l ight i n 2009 > Find out why its presence on the island of La Palma makes Roque de los Muchachos a very important place for astronomy. 4
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