Presentation

Substellar Science with the Euclid Space Mission (SUBSTELLAR) is a project aimed at mining the Euclid surveys for pushing the frontier of knowledge in substellar science.

SUBSTELLAR is an Advanced Grant awarded to Prof. Eduardo L. Martín (Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias) by the European Research Council. 

The primary science goal of SUBSTELLAR is to reveal and investigate the faint objects that lurk in the darkness beyond the limits of stellar engines, using mainly the new data arriving from the ESA Euclid space mission.

Euclid is a space mission led by the European Space Agency (ESA) to conduct a deep, single-epoch survey of 15,000 deg2 of sky with visible and near-infrared photometry and spectroscopy, and 40 deg2 multi-epoch very deep surveys. Euclid was launched at July 1st 2023.

The unprecedented combination of sensitivity, areal coverage, spatial resolution, data homogeneity and spectral information will naturally be of tremendous benefit to other areas of astrophysics. Two Euclid Independent Legacy Science (ILS) programs have been designated by ESA to develop and pursue independent science programs that capitalize on the unique data products of the Euclid surveys. SUBSTELLAR will re-use existing ground-based and space-based multiwavelength data to complement the new data obtained with the Euclid space mission.  

 

LATEST NEWS

Sep 02 2026, 09:14

Launch of the Nancy Grace Roman Telescope: an Account From a Front-row Witness

Prof Eduardo L. Martín, SUBSTELLAR PI, was invited to the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launching. 

Launched on August 30, named after NASA’s first chief astronomer, the ‘mother of the Hubble Space Telescope,’ the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will have a field of view at least 100 times larger than Hubble's, potentially measuring light from a billion galaxies in its lifetime. This observatory will also be able to block starlight to directly see exoplanets and planet-forming disks, complete a statistical census of planetary systems in our galaxy, and settle essential questions in the areas of dark energy, exoplanets, and infrared astrophysics. The telescope will orbit the Sun-Earth Lagrange point L2.

See the whole post by Eduardo Martín at  The conversation , in Spanish.

Aug 16 2026, 11:47

SUBSTELLAR Astrophysics Conference 2026

A large group of the substellar community has met in El Montico Hotel (Tordesillas, Valladolid, Spain) in the SUBSTELLAR Astrophysics Conference (SAC-2026) that took place from 08 to 14 August with the aim of bringing together researchers interested in substellar science with special emphasis on exploiting the wealth of data provided by Euclid and complementing it with other surveys and follow-up observations.

Professors and researchers from 14 countries attended the conference and discussed about the presented talks.The conference was hosted and supported by the ERC Advanced Grant SUBSTELLAR .

As part of the programme, on August 12, 2026, it was organised a experience "Eclipse in a Vineyard" for observing and enjoying the Total Eclipse in a renowned vineyard Cepa21.

More details at SAC-2026

See some pictures below.

1. The Conference

2. The SAC-2026 Family

3. The Total Eclipse

4. IA Generated Pictures

Jun 30 2026, 12:59

SubstellarLLM, an ERC project linked to SUBSTELLAR, the first Proof of Concept Grant awarded to IAC

The European Research Council (ERC) has today announced the names of its grantees to be awarded the Proof of Concept Grants. Funding for this first round of 2026, worth €27.3 million, will go to 182 researchers. Each grant is worth €150,000 and helps current and recent ERC grantees to explore the commercial or societal potential of their research findings. This grant scheme is part of the EU's research and innovation programme, Horizon Europe.

One of the funding has been awarded to the SubstellarLLM project, led by Prof Eduardo L. Martín Guerrero de Escalante, IAC researcher and Principal Investigator of the ERC Advanced Grant SUBSTELLAR.

ERC Proof of Concept Grants aim to maximise the value of ERC-funded research by supporting activities that help verify the innovation, commercialisation or societal impact potential of results obtained in ongoing or recently completed ERC projects. 

The SubstellarLLM project will develop a multimodal artificial intelligence platform adapted to the field of substellar astronomy. Its objective is to apply foundation models, spectral analysis using vision-language models, retrieval-augmented generation and automated workflows to facilitate the study of very low-mass objects, such as brown dwarfs, exoplanets and free-floating planets.

“SubstellarLLM will allow us to explore how advanced artificial intelligence tools can accelerate the analysis of large volumes of astronomical data and open up new avenues for the study of substellar objects. This Proof of Concept represents an opportunity to transfer the results of SUBSTELLAR into useful solutions for the scientific community,” says Prof Martín Guerrero.

The proposal benefited from the key collaboration of Dr Ramarao Tata, a former IAC postdoctoral researcher and currently a professor at Ohio University. Dr Tata has developed artificial intelligence tools adopted by various public institutions, including the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the United States tax agency.

More details at Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias

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