Last night, the 5,000 fiber-optic eyes of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) swiveled onto a patch of sky near the Little Dipper. Roughly every 20 minutes, they locked on to distant pinpricks of light, gathering photons that had traveled toward Earth for billions of years. When the sun rose, collaborators marked completion of a major milestone: successfully surveying all of the area in DESI’s originally planned map of the universe.

The five-year survey, finished ahead of schedule and with vastly more data than expected, has produced the largest high-resolution 3D map of the universe ever made. Researchers use that map to explore dark energy, the fundamental ingredient that makes up about 70% of our universe and is driving its accelerating expansion.

By comparing how galaxies clustered in the past with their distribution today, researchers have traced dark energy’s influence over 11 billion years of cosmic history. Surprising results using DESI’s first three years of data hinted that dark energy, once thought to be a “cosmological constant,” might be evolving over time. With the full set of five years of data, researchers will have significantly more information to test whether that hint disappears or grows. If confirmed, it would mark a major shift in how we think about our universe and its potential fate, which hinges on the balance between matter and dark energy.

“We are very eager to obtain the analysis of these five years of data and what they tell us about the nature of dark energy,” says Adriana Nadal-Matosas, a PhD student at the ICCUB who studies the non-Gaussian signal of DESI galaxies. “In a few months we will be able to learn a bit more about whether DESI data are statistically consistent with measurements of the cosmic microwave background within the cosmological constant framework,” Nadal-Matosas adds, referring to the potential discrepancy between these two experiments.

DESI’s quest to understand dark energy is a global endeavor. The international experiment brings together the expertise of more than 900 researchers (including 300 PhD students) from over 70 institutions. The project is managed by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), and the instrument was constructed and is operated with funding from the DOE Office of Science. DESI is mounted on the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Nicholas U. Mayall 4-meter Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory (a program of NSF NOIRLab) in Arizona.

“DESI’s five-year survey has been spectacularly successful,” said Michael Levi, DESI director and a scientist at Berkeley Lab. “The instrument performed better than anticipated. The results have been incredibly exciting. And the size and scope of the map and how quickly we’ve been able to execute is phenomenal. We’re going to celebrate completion of the original survey and then get started on the work of churning through the data, because we’re all curious about what new surprises are waiting for us.”

DESI has now measured cosmological data for six times as many galaxies and quasars as all previous measurements combined. The collaboration will immediately begin processing the completed dataset, with the first dark energy results from DESI’s full five-year survey expected in 2027. In the meantime, DESI scientists continue to analyze the survey’s first three years of data, refining dark energy measurements and producing additional results on the structure and evolution of the universe, with several papers planned later this year.

“The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument has truly exceeded all expectations, delivering an unprecedented 3D map of the universe that will revolutionize our understanding of dark energy,” said Kathy Turner, Program Manager for the Cosmic Frontier in the Office of High Energy Physics at the Department of Energy. “From its inception, we envisioned a project that would push the boundaries of cosmology, and to see it come to such a spectacularly successful completion for its initial survey, ahead of schedule and with such rich data, is incredibly rewarding. The dedication and ingenuity of the entire DESI collaboration have made this world-leading science a reality, and I am immensely proud of the groundbreaking results we are already seeing and the discoveries yet to come as we continue to explore the mysteries of our cosmos.”

An observing machine

DESI began collecting data in May 2021. Since then, the instrument has far surpassed the collaboration’s original goals. The plan was to capture light from 34 million galaxies and quasars (extremely distant yet bright objects with black holes at their cores) over the five-year sky survey. DESI instead observed more than 47 million galaxies and quasars and 20 million stars.

The project’s success is even more impressive in light of several challenges. DESI is a complicated machine with thousands of parts to maintain. In 2020, final tests of the instrument were interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, the Contreras Fire swept over Kitt Peak but, through the efforts of firefighters and staff, did not damage the telescope. Recovery efforts were slowed by monsoons and mudslides.

“DESI is a complicated but wonderfully robust system, and it’s been a huge amount of fun to see it come together and work so well for such a long time,” said Connie Rockosi, co-instrument scientist for DESI and a professor at UC Santa Cruz and UC Observatories. “We’ve learned about the instrument over five years, and we know its personality and behavior pretty well. That’s important because having the instrument be so efficient is why we’re here at the end of DESI’s original survey with such great data and so much science coming out.”

To map objects, researchers use specially-designed software to optimize DESI observations and decide where to point the telescope. Robotic positioners precisely line up optical fibers that are accurate to within 10 microns, or less than the width of a hair. Ten spectrographs then measure and split the light into its separate colors to determine each object’s position, velocity, and chemical composition. Each night, roughly 80 gigabytes of data streams through ESnet, DOE’s high-speed science network, to supercomputers at Berkeley Lab’s National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC). Initial processing lets researchers do quality assurance and make any adjustments needed for the next night of observations.

Collaborators across the project found ways to make DESI more efficient. Efforts spanned telescope operations, tweaks to the instrument hardware, updates to software, observing protocols, methods to reduce the data, and more.

“There’s been constant monitoring and intervention to make the whole thing tick,” said Adam Myers, co-manager for DESI’s survey operations and professor at the University of Wyoming. “And the DESI team is remarkable. This huge group of people have all been working on whether they could save one or two or three percent in their particular area, and when you add it all up, it results in these amazing gains in efficiency.”

DESI is designed to make several overlapping passes of the sky to observe its full footprint (and sometimes make repeated observations of faint objects). The survey was so efficient, the team completed an entire additional pass over the sky for the “Bright-Time Survey,” which is carried out when reflected light from the moon hinders observations of faint and distant objects. All told, DESI made five passes during the Bright-Time Survey and seven during the Dark-Time Survey, covering about two-thirds of the northern night sky.
 

The sky’s the limit

DESI will continue observations through 2028 and grow its map by about 20%, from 14,000 square degrees to 17,000 square degrees. (For comparison, the moon covers approximately 0.2 square degrees, and the full sky has over 41,000 square degrees). The extended map will cover parts of the sky that are more challenging to observe: areas that are closer to the plane of the Milky Way, where bright nearby stars can make it harder to see more distant objects, or further to the south, where the telescope must account for peering through more of Earth’s atmosphere.

The experiment will also revisit the existing area of the map to collect data from a new set of galaxies: more distant and faint “luminous red galaxies.” These will provide an even denser and more detailed map in the regions DESI has already covered, giving researchers a clearer picture of the universe’s history.

Researchers will also study nearby dwarf galaxies and stellar streams, bands of stars torn from smaller galaxies by the Milky Way’s gravity. The hope is to better understand dark matter, the invisible form of matter that accounts for most of the mass in the universe but has never been directly detected.

The extended map is already underway. When it became clear that DESI would operate beyond its original survey plan, researchers began interleaving the new observations with the ongoing DESI survey to optimize the use of telescope time and keep the instrument from sitting idle.

“We’ve built a remarkable piece of equipment that met all our expectations and then some,” Levi said. “Now we’re pushing beyond our original plan. We don’t know what we’ll find, but we think it’ll be pretty exciting.”

DESI is supported by the DOE Office of Science and by the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, a DOE Office of Science national user facility. Additional support for DESI is provided by the U.S. National Science Foundation; the Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom; the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation; the Heising-Simons Foundation; the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA); the Secretariat of Science, Humanities, Technology and Innovation (SECIHTI) of Mexico; the Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain; and by the DESI member institutions.

The DESI collaboration is honored to be permitted to conduct scientific research on I’oligam Du’ag (Kitt Peak), a mountain with particular significance to the Tohono O’odham Nation.

An international team of researchers has proposed a new way to address the “Hubble tension” by comparing estimates of the Universe’s age rather than its expansion rate. Using precise stellar data, they determined ages for carefully selected very old Milky Way stars and found a most likely age of about 13.6 billion years. Under the assumption of the standard cosmological model, this age is inconsistent with the younger Universe implied by Cepheid- and Supernova-based expansion measurements, but it is compatible with the older age inferred from observations of the cosmic microwave background—thereby adding a new perspective to the ongoing Hubble tension debate.

One of the most debated questions in modern cosmology is the value of the Hubble constant, which measures how fast the Universe is expanding today. For years, the different traditional methods have provided inconsistent results, and despite many efforts, there is still no clear explanation. Since the Gaia space mission, our Milky Way has increasingly become a “close-up laboratory” for cosmology.

The study, led by the Università di Bologna and the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP), opens up an alternative approach to the methods used so far. Instead of searching for the discrepancies directly in the expansion rate, it was translated into a so-called age tension. Cosmological models link the current rate of expansion of the Universe directly to its age: a higher value of the Hubble constant implies a younger Universe, while a smaller value corresponds to an older one. The Hubble constant measurements currently in tension, based on measurements in the local Universe from Cepheids and Supernovae on the one hand and on the early Universe from the cosmic microwave background on the other, correspond to cosmic ages of about 13 and 14 billion years, respectively. But which of these two ages is the correct one?

The Universe cannot be younger than the oldest stars it contains. If the ages of the oldest stars in our Galaxy can therefore be measured with high precision, a robust lower limit on the age of the Universe can be established.

The project was initiated by an unusual collaboration between two research fields that have traditionally been separate: a cosmology group at the University of Bologna and a stellar archaeology group at the AIP.
 

ICCUB-IEEC Contribution

Researchers from the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB) and the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC) also played a significant role in enabling these results. 

Friedrich Anders (ICCUB–IEEC) is one of the main developers of StarHorse, the computational framework used to determine precise stellar ages in this study. He contributed to the analysis, in particular to the evaluation of systematic uncertainties. “Isochrone fitting, the method we use to estimate ages, requires comparing a star’s observed brightness, colour, temperature, and composition with large grids of stellar evolution models,” says Dr. Anders. “Although the idea is simple, the underlying observables are highly interconnected”.

He also emphasises the importance of Gaia’s unprecedented precision: “Gaia’s parallax uncertainties below one percent were crucial for tightly constraining stellar masses and thus their ages. Decades of work by the Gaia data processing teams at ICCUB, IEEC, and across Europe made it possible to identify around one hundred of the very oldest stars with high-quality age estimates. Further improvements are expected with Gaia DR4, scheduled for release in December 2026.” 

Licia Verde (ICREA–ICCUB) and Raul Jiménez (ICREA–ICCUB), along with the ICCUB Cosmology group, have been instrumental in shaping the theoretical framework for this study, and are internationally recognised for pioneering the use of stellar ages as cosmological probes. "Stellar ages are of paramount importance to unveil the physics of the standard model of cosmology LCDM, among them the Hubble tension", says Raul Jiménez. "The ICCUB has been leading its use as cosmic chronometers for such purpose. These new age determinations will help to achieve this goal."

The work was based on an existing catalogue of stellar ages from a previous study from AIP, in which precise ages were measured by combining multiple pieces of information on the brightness, position, and distance of more than 200’000 stars in the Milky Way. A crucial element was the use of the third data release of the ESA Gaia mission, which provides exceptionally accurate parallaxes and spectra and thus improved stellar parameters for a large number of nearby stars.

From this extensive dataset, a carefully selected sample of the oldest stars with the most reliable age estimates was compiled. The focus was on quality over quantity, choosing only stars whose ages could be determined robustly by the StarHorse code and removing potential contaminants. The result: for the final sample of around one hundred stars, the most probable age is about 13.6 billion years. This is too old to be compatible with the age of the Universe inferred from Cepheids and Supernovae (unless other ingredients in the cosmological models are varied), but it aligns well with the cosmic age inferred from the cosmic microwave background.

“This project beautifully shows how combining expertise from different fields can open new windows on fundamental questions. Measuring the age of stars is, in itself, a complex challenge, but we now live in an era in which the quantity and quality of available data allow us to achieve unprecedented precision and, for the first time, statistically significant results. With the next Gaia data release on the horizon, stellar ages could become a fundamental anchor for cosmology.” says Elena Tomasetti from the Università di Bologna and first author of the study.

“With Gaia, the Milky Way has effectively become a near-field cosmology laboratory. We can now estimate stellar ages with unprecedented precision. The next breakthrough will be accuracy, anchoring the Galactic timeline with far greater certainty. The HAYDN mission concept, with AIP participation, aims to provide that decisive step.“ adds Cristina Chiappini from AIP.

Although these results are not yet conclusive due to remaining uncertainties in stellar age estimates, they provide an important independent constraint in the debate over the Hubble tension. At the same time, they highlight the potential of near-field cosmology and, in particular, the research at the AIP to tackle fundamental cosmological questions using the oldest “fossils” of the Milky Way. With the fourth Gaia data release, further significant progress is expected—and with it, even stronger constraints on the age of the Universe and the value of the Hubble constant.
 

Further information

E. Tomasetti et al. 2026: The oldest Milky Way stars: New constraints on the age of the Universe and the Hubble constant, A&A, 707, A111, https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202557038 (ArXiv)

S. Nepal et al. 2024: Discovery of the local counterpart of disc galaxies at z > 4: The oldest thin disc of the Milky Way using Gaia-RVS, A&A, 688, A167 https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202449445 (ArXiv)

The Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB) will host three new PhD researchers through the prestigious INPhINIT doctoral fellowships awarded by the ”la Caixa” Foundation. These highly competitive fellowships aim to attract and retain outstanding international talent at leading research centres in Spain and Portugal.

As part of the 2025 call, the ”la Caixa” Foundation has awarded 60 doctoral and 40 postdoctoral fellowships to excellent researchers to carry out their projects. The programme not only provides competitive funding, but also offers comprehensive cross-disciplinary training in areas such as scientific communication, leadership, and career development .
 

The three doctoral researchers joining ICCUB will contribute to the institute’s research in fundamental physics, strengthening its activities in cosmology, gravitation, and theoretical physics.

International talent in fundamental physics
 

Mariami Mtchedlidze, from Georgia, will pursue a PhD in Particle Physics and Gravitation. Her academic path has been shaped by strong international experience, with studies in Tbilisi, Rome, and Bremen במסגרת the Erasmus Mundus Master’s programme in Astrophysics and Space Science. Her research interests focus on gravitational physics and cosmology, with the aim of fostering collaboration and innovation in these fields.

Nell Weidemann, born in Liège (Belgium), joins the PhD programme in Physics. Specialised in cosmology and the large-scale structure of the Universe, she completed both her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at the University of Liège with high honours. She aims to combine research and teaching, contributing to major open questions in physics while inspiring future generations.

Sebastián Nicolás Mendoza Vasconez, from Quito (Ecuador), will carry out his PhD in Physics with a focus on theoretical physics. He completed his undergraduate studies at Jacobs University Bremen and further specialised through the Mathematical Tripos (Part III) at the University of Cambridge. His interests lie at the intersection of quantum physics and gravity, particularly in holography, as well as in condensed matter physics, machine learning, and quantum information science.

A programme fostering research excellence
 

The ”la Caixa” Foundation fellowship programme is one of the most significant initiatives promoted by a private organisation in Europe, both in terms of the number of fellowships awarded and the breadth of disciplines covered. In this edition, more than €22 million will be allocated to doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships, co-funded by the European Commission through the Marie Skłodowska-Curie COFUND Actions .

With the incorporation of these three researchers, ICCUB continues to strengthen its international outlook and its commitment to excellence in cosmos sciences.
 

Óscar Jiménez Arranz, former ICCUB-IEEC doctoral student, has been honored with the Premi Extraordinari de Doctorat 2023–2024 in recognition of the outstanding quality of his PhD thesis. This award is granted annually by the University of Barcelona to graduates whose research demonstrates exceptional academic excellence and make significant contributions to their field.

Dr. Jiménez Arranz completed his PhD at the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB) under the supervision of Mercè Romero and former ICCUB Director Xavier Luri. His thesis, “Dynamical characterisation of the Magellanic Clouds with Gaia data and the KRATOS simulations”, focuses on the detailed dynamics of our closest neighbouring galaxies, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (LMC and SMC), by combining the unprecedented astrometric dataset from the Gaia mission with advanced numerical simulations.

The award ceremony will take place on 28 April in the Paranimf of the Historic Building at the University of Barcelona, celebrating the achievements of doctoral graduates from the 2023–2024 academic year. Faculty members, fellow researchers, and family will join the event to recognize the remarkable accomplishments of the awardees.

The Extraordinary PhD Prize highlights both academic merit and research excellence. Following his PhD, Óscar Jiménez Arranz has continued his research career as a postdoctoral researcher at Lund University, further advancing the study of galactic dynamics.

We warmly congratulate Óscar Jiménez Arranz on this outstanding achievement and look forward to his continued contributions to astrophysics.

The Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities has awarded Xavier Roca-Maza, researcher at the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB), a Consolidación Investigadora 2026 grant for the project NGEDF (Next-Generation Energy Density Functionals).

The Consolidación Investigadora programme aims to strengthen and consolidate the scientific careers of established researchers by supporting ambitious, high-impact research projects. In the 2025 call, the NGEDF project has been selected for its innovative approach to one of the central challenges in nuclear theory: the development of accurate and predictive nuclear energy density functionals.

Towards next-generation nuclear models

The NGEDF project aims to improve how scientists model and understand the atomic nucleus. These models are essential for explaining why nuclei have certain sizes, masses and properties, but current approaches rely on mathematical formulas that were largely designed by hand and can be too rigid to fully capture the complexity of nuclear matter.

Instead of fine-tuning existing formulas, NGEDF takes a different approach. The project will use advanced computer algorithms, including machine learning, to automatically explore and build new mathematical descriptions of nuclei. By combining large sets of nuclear data with physical principles, this method will identify the simplest and most accurate models that can reliably predict nuclear properties, while also indicating how uncertain those predictions are.

This new strategy is expected to lead to more reliable and transparent nuclear models, opening the door to a deeper understanding of atomic nuclei and improving predictions in areas where experimental data are scarce or difficult to obtain.

Impact on nuclear physics and beyond

By advancing the foundations of nuclear density functional theory, the NGEDF project is expected to have a significant impact on multiple areas of nuclear physics, from the structure of exotic nuclei to applications in nuclear astrophysics, including the physics of neutron stars. More broadly, the project exemplifies how modern data science techniques can be integrated into fundamental theoretical physics while preserving physical insight and interpretability. 

This grant further reinforces ICCUB’s role as a leading center in theoretical nuclear physics and strengthens its contribution to frontier research at the intersection of physics, mathematics and artificial intelligence.

The University of Barcelona and the Bosch i Gimpera Foundation have honoured former ICCUB researcher Ivan Morera with the Ramon Margalef Award, recognizing his discovery of a new form of quantum magnetism known as kinetic magnetism. The award was presented on December 16th during the XXI Social Council Awards and XVIII Bosch i Gimpera Foundation Awards ceremony, held at the Aula Magna of the University’s Historic Building.
 

The Ramon Margalef Award distinguishes the best research article in the experimental and health sciences derived from a doctoral thesis. Dr. Morera’s work, carried out during his PhD thesis at the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB) and published in Nature under the title “Kinetic magnetism in triangular moiré materials”, reveals a previously unknown mechanism by which magnetism can be engineered in laboratory settings.
 

Unlike conventional magnetism, found naturally in materials such as iron and typically difficult to modify, kinetic magnetism can be created and controlled through the administration of electric charges. This discovery opens the door to new technological applications, potentially transforming fields such as quantum materials, spintronics, and next‑generation electronic devices.
 

Ivan Morera’s research demonstrates that triangular moiré materials can exhibit a new form of quantum magnetism, kinetic magnetism, which can be created in the laboratory through the administration of electric charges. This discovery opens new avenues for technological applications in the field of quantum materials.
 

The ceremony also highlighted outstanding contributions across the humanities, social sciences, technology transfer, and biomedical innovation, reaffirming the University of Barcelona and Bosch i Gimpera Foundation’s commitment to advancing knowledge with social and scientific impact.
 

Dr. Morera’s achievement stands out as a landmark in the field of quantum physics and exemplifies the high‑quality research carried out by emerging scientists at ICCUB.

If you missed the award ceremony, you can visualitze it here:
 

The Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB) is pleased to announce that Domènec Espriu has been appointed as its new director. He will be joined on the executive board by Bruno Juliá as deputy director and Nadejda Blagorodnova as secretary, reinforcing the institute’s leadership team.

Espriu succeeds Xavier Luri Carrascoso, who directed ICCUB from 2018 to 2025 and recently assumed the directorship of the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC). During the transition period, Atilà Herms served as interim director.
 

About the new director

Domènec Espriu is a full professor of theoretical physics at the University of Barcelona. He earned his PhD in Physics at UB and has developed a distinguished career in theoretical particle physics. His work has contributed to the understanding of chiral Lagrangians, low-energy QCD, and collider physics at LEP and LHC, among other topics. Beyond academia, Espriu served as Director of Spain’s State Research Agency (Agencia Estatal de Investigación) from 2022 to 2024, overseeing national R&D funding and policy.

Espriu’s extensive academic and leadership experience will strengthen ICCUB’s international collaborations, foster interdisciplinary research, and guide the institute in addressing the scientific challenges of the coming years.

Our thanks to Xavier Luri

Xavier Luri directed ICCUB from 2018 to 2025. A specialist in space missions and data analysis, Luri is a key contributor to the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission, which is mapping over a billion stars in our galaxy.

Under his leadership, ICCUB expanded its international partnerships, strengthened its visibility in European research networks, and fostered a new generation of scientists. His tenure was marked by a commitment to excellence and innovation, with the institute winning two consecutive Maria de Maeztu excellence awards that have positioned ICCUB as a reference center in particle physics, nuclear physics and astrophysics.

“Directing ICCUB has been a privilege”, says Xavier Luri. “I am proud of the progress we achieved together, and I am particularly happy of the many synergies that have aroused during my mandate between the different research areas of the institute. I am confident that under Domènec’s leadership, ICCUB will continue to thrive and meet the challenges ahead.”

Now, as he takes on the directorship of the IEEC, Luri passes the baton to Domènec Espriu, entrusting him with the responsibility of guiding ICCUB through new scientific challenges.

Supporting Espriu in his new role is Professor Bruno Juliá, deputy director of ICCUB. Bruno is a full professor in the Department of Quantum Physics and Astrophysics at UB, with a PhD from the University of Salamanca (2003). His research focuses on quantum simulators, ultracold atomic gases, and many-body quantum physics, with applications in quantum technologies and communications.

Nadejda Blagorodnova joins the ICCUB executive team as Scientific Secretary, bringing extensive academic expertise and leadership experience in international collaborations. She earned her PhD in Astrophysics from the University of Cambridge and has held research positions at Caltech and the University of Liverpool before joining ICCUB. Currently a researcher at ICCUB-IEEC, she leads studies on stellar mergers and transient phenomena, contributing to major projects such as BlackGEM and Gaia. In her new role, she will play a key part in strengthening the institute’s governance and fostering collaboration across research teams.

“It is an honor to lead ICCUB at such a pivotal time”, says Domènec Espriu. “Our mission is to deepen our understanding of the physical world fostering innovation in astrophysics, particle physics and cosmology. I look forward to working with our outstanding researchers to strengthen ICCUB’s role on the global stage.”

The event took place at the Plaça de Catalunya station of the Ferrocarrils and was attended by the president of FGC, Carles Ruiz Novella; the director of the ICD, Alba García Sánchez; the general secretary of the IEC, Àngel Messeguer i Peypoch; the vice-rector for Equality, Inclusion and Gender of the UB, Montserrat Puig Llobet; the vice-rector for Culture, Memory and Heritage of the UB, Agustí Alcoberro Pericay; the president of the Science and Technology Section of the IEC, Alícia Casals Gelpí; researchers from the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the UB and the Faculty of Physics of the UB, and relatives of Assumpció Català.
 

The christening of the train marks the final stretch of the commemorative events for the centenary of the birth of Assumpció Català i Poch, which began in February with an event in the University's Historical Building, where Català was a professor of Mathematics and Astronomy. On July 14, coinciding with the exact date of her birth, the central event was held at the Montsec Astronomical Park, where the largest telescope has been named after Català since 2016. The Astronomical Park, managed by FGC, has also dedicated this year's Astronomy Festival to the figure of the astronomer.

During today's christening ceremony, the travelling exhibition on the figure of Català i Poch, which has been prepared by the ICD, was also visited on the platform of via 5 in Plaça de Catalunya. The exhibition will be moved from tomorrow to the Espai Provença of FGC (Provença station: access via Carrer de Rosselló, 219, on the corner with Balmes), where it can be visited until December 19, from Monday to Friday, from 9:00 to 19:00.
 

In addition, on November 27, three exhibitions related to the figure of Assumpció Català will be inaugurated at the Faculty of Physics of the University of Barcelona: a virtual one, entitled "Assumpció Català and the University of Barcelona. A pioneering trajectory in the university and scientific world"; one from the M. Asunción Català Poch Collection of the CRAI Library of Physics and Chemistry, and another on historical astronomy instruments. On the other hand, the biographical comic book Assumpció Català, la dona que estimava les estrelles (Edicions UB) will be published shortly, with illustrations by Pilarín Bayés and texts by Ramon Dilla, professor of Art History at the UB.

The centenary of the Catalan Assumption is part of the Government's commemorations for 2025, which annually decides on the events and personalities to be commemorated by the Generalitat de Catalunya. The aim is to highlight, recover and disseminate the memory of these events and personalities that have left their mark on the collective heritage.

Assumpció Català i Poch (Barcelona, ​​14 July 1925 - 3 July 2009) was the first woman to obtain a doctorate in Mathematics from the University of Barcelona. She did so in 1970, and ended up becoming a professor of Mathematics and Astronomy at the same University. She also carried out systematic observations of sunspots for over thirty years and represented Spain in the International Astronomical Union.

The Royal Spanish Academy of Sciences (RAC) has announced the election of two new members during its latest plenary session. Elena Vázquez Cendón joins as a full member of the Mathematics Section, while Javier Menéndez Sánchez has been appointed as a corresponding member of the Physics and Chemistry Section.

Javier Menéndez is a nuclear theorist and research professor at the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB), where he is part of the Hadronic, Nuclear and Atomic Physics group. 

Menéndez’s research focuses on nuclear theory at low energies, aiming to understand the structure of atomic nuclei from first principles. His work involves solving complex quantum many-body problems rooted in quantum chromodynamics (QCD), the fundamental theory of strong interactions. A central theme of his research is the study of exotic nuclei and their role in answering some of the most profound questions in physics.
Recently, Menéndez has expanded his research to explore quantum computing as a tool for solving the quantum many-body problem, opening new avenues for simulating nuclear systems with unprecedented precision.

The RAC’s recognition of Javier Menéndez as a corresponding member highlights his contributions to nuclear physics and his leadership in bridging theoretical models with experimental efforts worldwide. It also reflects the excellence of ICCUB researchers in advancing fundamental science and tackling the big questions about the nature of the universe.

The ICCUB warmly congratulates Javier Menéndez on this prestigious appointment.

Twenty one researchers from the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB) have been included in the latest edition of the Stanford ranking of the world’s most cited scientists, a recognition that highlights the global impact of their scientific work in the field of physics and astronomy.

The ranking, compiled by Stanford University, identifies the top 2% of scientists worldwide according to bibliometric indicators such as the number of citations, h-index, co-authorship-adjusted index, and citations to papers across different authorship positions. It includes two categories: one based on career-long impact and another reflecting influence during the past year.

Among the UB researchers listed in the 2024 edition, 21 belong to ICCUB, confirming the Institute’s position as a leading center for research in astrophysics, cosmology particle physics and fundamental physics.

The ICCUB researchers featured in the ranking are:
Francesc Salvat, Friedrich Anders, Mark Gieles, Héctor Gil-Marín, Kazushi Iwasawa, Raúl Jiménez, Jordi Miralda, Pablo Bueno, Pablo Cano, Jorge Casalderrey, Roberto Emparan, Jaume Garriga, Cristiano Germani, Adrià Gómez-Valent, José Ignacio Latorre, David Mateos, Javier Menéndez, Alessio Notari, Xavier Roca-Maza, Joan Solà and Licia Verde.

Their inclusion in the Stanford list underscores the international visibility and scientific excellence of ICCUB’s research, spanning topics from galaxy formation and cosmic structure to particle physics and gravitation.

The University of Barcelona is the Spanish university with the largest number of research staff in this group of leading scientists, with numerous researchers from across its faculties and institutes. The full list of UB researchers included in the Stanford ranking is available on the University of Barcelona news website.