The SCITECHSS Group is a research and development team of scientists and engineers based at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía–CSIC (Granada-Spain). It devotes its efforts to develop instruments for the exploration of our Solar System with the aim of obtaining scientific data. The analysis and interpretation of these data allow us to advance in the understanding of the nature of the planets, their satellites, and the small bodies.
Latest news
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Methane and ozone: aiding and complicating the search for life in the Universe
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We must prepare to search for life in the Universe With the first light of the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) on the horizon, as well as multiple next-generation mission concepts in development, we will soon be able to search for life in the Universe with more sensitive tools than ever. However, technological advances alone are…
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SCITECHSS group goes to EPSC-DPS 2025
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This is going to be a little bit longer post as SCITECHSS group has attended the EPSC-DPS 2025. Our PhD student Irene Mariblanca-Escalona presented the latest results from our comet observations. Her contribution highlighted the group’s ongoing work to measure the dust-to-gas ratio in comets, an observable that links coma measurements to the interior composition…
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An interestellar object is visiting us!!! Its name, 3I/ATLAS
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A new interstellar visitor, 3I/ATLAS (provisionally designated A11pl3Z), was discovered on July 1, 2025, by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) survey, at a heliocentric distance of 4.53 AU. It was confirmed as an interstellar object due to its hyperbolic trajectory, with an eccentricity of 6.1, indicating that it is not gravitationally bound to…