The Moon's changeable aspect during a lunar eclipse is largely attributable to variations in the refracted unscattered sunlight absorbed by the terrestrial atmosphere that occur as the satellite crosses the Earth's shadow. The contribution to the Moon's aspect from sunlight scattered at the Earth's terminator is generally deemed minor. However, our analysis of a published spectrum of the 16 August 2008 lunar eclipse shows that diffuse sunlight is a major component of the measured spectrum at wavelengths shorter than 600 nm. The conclusion is supported by two distinct features, namely the

We present photometric and spectroscopic observations of the members of three previously cataloged compact group (CG) candidatesat redshifts $z>0.3$. These confirm spectroscopic  redshifts compatiblewith being gravitationally bound structures  at redshifts 0.3112, 0.3848and 0.3643 respectively, and then they are the most distant  CGs known with  spectroscopic confirmation for all their members.  The morphological and spectroscopic properties of all their galaxies  indicate early types dominated by an old population of stars, with little star formation or nuclear activity. Most of the

The Kepler mission has made an important observation, the first detection of photons from a terrestrial planet by observing its phase curve (Kepler-10b). This opens a new field in exoplanet science: the possibility to get information about the atmosphere and surface of rocky planets, objects of prime interest. In this letter, we apply the Lava-ocean model to interpret the observed phase curve. The model, a planet with no atmosphere and a surface partially made of molten rocks, has been proposed for planets of the class of CoRoT-7b, i.e. rocky planets very close to their star (at few stellar

In this work we present the first complete CO J=3-2 map of M 81, observed as part of the Nearby Galaxies Legacy Survey. M 81 is a nearby spiral galaxy (3.64 Mpc) known for hosting a high level of star formation. Previous studies, mainly in the J=1-0 line, have found little CO. The CO measured in a galaxy allows, through an empirical conversion factor, to know its content of molecular hydrogen. We have detected nine regions of important emission in the CO J=3-2 line, located at different regions of the spiral arm and confirmed that the global CO emission is low. Using a new Halpha map

The extragalactic background light at far-infrared ( FIR) wavelengths comes from optically faint, dusty, star-forming galaxies in the Universe with star formation rates of a few hundred solar masses per year. These faint, submillimetre galaxies are challenging to study individually because of the relatively poor spatial resolution of far-infrared telescopes but they are responsible for more than 85% of the total extragalactic intensity at these wavelengths. Instead, their average properties can be studied using statistics such as the angular power spectrum of the background intensity

We find a distinct stellar population in the counterrotating and kinematically decoupled core of the isolated massive elliptical galaxy NGC 1700. Coinciding with the edge of this core, we find a significant change in the slope of the gradient of various representative absorption line indices. Our age estimate for this core is markedly younger than the main body of the galaxy. We find lower values for the age, metallicity, and Mg/Fe abundance ratio in the center of this galaxy when we compare them with other isolated elliptical galaxies with similar velocity dispersion. We discuss the