Some 40 researchers presented their first scientific projects based on J-PAS, the three-dimensional survey of the sky carried out at the Javalambre Astrophysical Observatory (OAJ). The project is led by the Centro de Estudios de Física del Cosmos de Aragón (CEFCA). At the CEFCA headquarters in Teruel, speakers from the Beijing Normal University, the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, the University of Michigan and the leading centres of astrophysics in Spain, such as the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía and the Instituto de Física de Cantabria, took part.

The sessions run from Monday 18 to Wednesday 20 November and 16 international scientific institutions were represented. They address the evolution of galaxies, the application of J-PAS to study the Milky Way, or to differentiate stars and galaxies. The processing of millions of data and images, ongoing scientific projects and galaxy clusters are other topics that have been discussed during the three days of the conference.

The meeting is usually held every six months and its venue alternates between the different countries that host the centres that make up this international collaboration. J-PAS is a project led by CEFCA and the Centro Superior de Investigaciones Científicas through the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía on the Spanish side. The Brazilian partners are the National Observatory of Rio de Janeiro and the University of Sao Paulo. The peculiarity is that the data obtained during the first year of J-PAS observations, which started in May last year, are now available.

J-PAS provides an unprecedented and comprehensive three-dimensional mapping of the Universe. It is the major project to be carried out over the next decade with the JST250, a 2.5-metre wide-field-of-view telescope and the JPCam panoramic camera, which, with more than 1.2 billion pixels, is currently one of the largest astronomical cameras in the world. JPCam integrates 56 photometric filters, defined specifically for the project, which also allow multi-colour images of large areas of the sky to be obtained.