The Centro de Estudios de Física del Cosmos de Aragón (CEFCA) is a

Research institute A research institute, research centre, or research organization is an establishment founded for doing research. Research institutes may specialize in basic research or may be oriented to applied research. Although the term often implies natural ...

in Teruel, Spain. Established in 2008 as a private foundation of public initiative. by the

Government of Aragon Aragon ( , ; Spanish and ; ) is an autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in Spain, coextensive with the medieval Kingdom of Aragon. In northeastern Spain, the Aragonese autonomous community comprises three provinces of Spain, ...

. Besides research in astronomy, and leading several large astronomical surveys, CEFCA is the operator of the Astrophysical Observatory of Javalambre (OAJ, recognized as Unique Science and Technology Infrastructure by the national government). The primary research interests at CEFCA are in

Stellar evolution Stellar evolution is the process by which a star changes over the course of time. Depending on the mass of the star, its lifetime can range from a few million years for the most massive to trillions of years for the least massive, which is consi ...

Time-domain astronomy Time-domain astronomy is the study of how astronomical objects change with time. Said to have begun with Galileo's '' Letters on Sunspots'', the field has now naturally expanded to encompass variable objects beyond the Solar System. Temporal varia ...

and

Galaxy evolution In cosmology, the study of galaxy formation and evolution is concerned with the processes that formed a heterogeneous universe from a homogeneous beginning, the formation of the first galaxies, the way galaxies change over time, and the process ...

History

CEFCA was officially established in July 2008 with Mariano Moles Villamate as the founding director. The founding of CEFCA is intertwined with that of the OAJ, see the history of OAJ for more. Some key dates in CEFCA's history include: * 2008: CEFCA is established. * 2009: First meeting of CEFCA Steering committee (Patronato de la Fundación CEFCA) and launch of project (allowing hiring of staff). * 2010: CEFCA moved to its current location (in Teruel's Plaza San Juan). * 2014: OAJ was recognized as a national . * 2016: Javier Cenarro Lagunas became the director.

Location

CEFCA is geographically located in the following installations within the

Province of Teruel Teruel ( Catalan: ''Terol'' ) is a province of Aragon, in the northeast of Spain. The capital is Teruel. It is bordered by the provinces of Tarragona, Castellón, Valencia (including its exclave Rincón de Ademuz), Cuenca, Guadalajara, and Z ...

. * The CEFCA headquarters are located in the historical center of

Teruel Teruel () is a city in Aragon, located in eastern Spain, and is also the capital of Teruel (province), Teruel Province. It had a population of 35,900 as of 2022, making it the least populated provincial capital in Spain. It is noted for its har ...

(at Plaza San Juan, number 1). In a building that was previously owned by the Teruel branch of the

Bank of Spain The Bank of Spain (, ) is the national central bank for Spain within the Eurosystem. It was the Spanish central bank from 1874 to 1998, issuing the peseta. Since 2014, it has also been Spain's national competent authority within European Banki ...

. * The Astrophysical Observatory of Javalambre (OAJ), which is located on the "Buitre" peak of the

Sierra de Javalambre Sierra de Javalambre (; )) is a long mountain range in the Gúdar-Javalambre comarca of Aragon and the Rincón de Ademuz and Serrans comarcas of the Valencian Community, Spain. Highway N-234 winds its way between Sierra de Javalambre and Se ...

. * CEFCA's main

High performance computing High-performance computing (HPC) is the use of supercomputers and computer clusters to solve advanced computation problems. Overview HPC integrates systems administration (including network and security knowledge) and parallel programming into ...

facility (Unit for Processing and Archival of Data) is located in the Government of Aragon building of Teruel. * CEFCA's main outreach facility is GALACTICA, which is an astronomy museum as well as facilities for

Amateur astronomy Amateur astronomy is a hobby where participants enjoy observing or imaging celestial objects in the sky using the Naked eye, unaided eye, binoculars, or telescopes. Even though scientific research may not be their primary goal, some amateur astr ...

. It is located on the base of the Pico de Buitre (where OAJ is located on the summit) in the

Arcos de las Salinas Arcos de las Salinas is a municipality located in the province of Teruel, Aragon, Spain. According to the 2018 census ( INE), the municipality had a population of 105 inhabitants. See also * List of municipalities in Teruel This is a list of the ...

village.

Academics

CEFCA's academic activity can be classified in the following fields

Graduate program

CEFCA's graduate program is composed of multiple levels: * Summer internships: ** CEFCA provides funding for M.Sc students from any Spanish university to stay in Teruel for July and August to conduct a short research project with CEFCA's research staff. ** Google Summer of Code projects that are available internationally and are done remotely. * M.Sc final project: this is a one-year project conducted by M.Sc students in Spain. CEFCA's research staff propose research topics for the students of any Spanish university. The students conduct their research in their host university, but under the supervision of the CEFCA research staff. * PhD program: A number of PhD students from any university are regularly funded and trained by CEFCA for the full 4-year period of a PhD course in Spain and are based in Teruel. Previous universities that CEFCA has cooperated with for this purpose include

University of Zaragoza The University of Zaragoza, sometimes referred to as Saragossa University () is a public university with teaching campuses and research centres spread over the three provinces of Aragon (Spain). Founded in 1542, it is one of the List of oldest u ...

and

Complutense University of Madrid The Complutense University of Madrid (, UCM; ) is a public research university located in Madrid. Founded in Alcalá in 1293 (before relocating to Madrid in 1836), it is one of the oldest operating universities in the world, and one of Spain's ...

Astrophysics

CEFCA's astrophysics research can be categorized in the following fields; primarily using data from the Astrophysical Observatory of Javalambre (OAJ); but not limited to them. * Wide-field

Astronomical survey An astronomical survey is a general celestial cartography, map or astrophotography, image of a region of the sky (or of the whole sky) that lacks a specific observational target. Alternatively, an astronomical survey may comprise a set of image ...

s: design and conduction of wide-field, multi-filter astronomical surveys. This includes surveys like J-PAS (planned to be +8000 square degrees in 57 filters), J-PLUS (+3000 square degrees in data release 3 in 12 filters), Mini-HAWKs (on-going), J-ALFIN (on-going)
MUDEHaR
(on-going) an
North-PHASE
(on-going). *

Astroinformatics Astroinformatics is an interdisciplinary field of study involving the combination of astronomy, data science, machine learning, informatics, and Information technology, information/Communications technologies, communications technologies.

: Including the data processing, archiving and analysis of the large volume the wide field imaging data that is produced by the observatory. The OAJ has a dedicated Department for Processing and Archival of Data (DPAD) for this purpose which contains staff researchers, technical astronomers and engineers. *

: imaging large portions of the sky in various times allows the study of

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet—an object larger than a meteoroid that is neither a planet nor an identified comet—that orbits within the Solar System#Inner Solar System, inner Solar System or is co-orbital with Jupiter (Trojan asteroids). As ...

s in the

Solar System The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Sola ...

(which move in the sky),

variable stars A variable star is a star whose brightness as seen from Earth (its apparent magnitude) changes systematically with time. This variation may be caused by a change in emitted light or by something partly blocking the light, so variable stars are ...

within the

Milky Way The Milky Way or Milky Way Galaxy is the galaxy that includes the Solar System, with the name describing the #Appearance, galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars in other arms of the galax ...

(which change brightness), or supernova in other galaxies * Stellar and

galaxy A galaxy is a Physical system, system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar medium, interstellar gas, cosmic dust, dust, and dark matter bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek ' (), literally 'milky', ...

evolution: the very wide field of view, and the many filters of the surveys conducted at OAJ allow accurate measurements of thousands of stars and galaxies in each exposure.

References

{{Reflist Astronomy in Spain Astrophysics research institutes Research institutes in Spain Astronomy data and publications Science and technology in Spain Buildings and structures in Teruel Astrophysics Astronomy organizations Teruel Astronomy institutes and departments