Fibrils are thin elongated features visible in the solar chromosphere in and around magnetized regions. Because of their visual appearance they have been traditionally considered a tracer of the magnetic field lines. To our best knowledge, this common conception has never been actually put to test, probably because a proper empirical determination of the chromospheric magnetic field is very challenging, requiring high-resolution spectro-polarimetry in chromospheric lines. In this work we challenge that notion for the first time by comparing their orientation to that of the magnetic field

NGC 4013 is a nearby Sb edge-on galaxy known for its “prodigious” HI warp and its “giant” tidal stream. Previous work on this unusual object shows that it cannot be fitted satisfactorily by a canonical thin+thick disk structure. We have produced a new decomposition of NGC 4013, considering three stellar flattened components (thin+thick disk plus an extra and more extended component) and one gaseous disk. All four components are considered to be gravitationally coupled and isothermal. To do so, we have used the 3.6µm images from the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (S4G).We

Nobel-prize winning scientists (2010), Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, synthesized graphene in the laboratory in 2004. Just seven years later, this material of extraordinary strength, thinness and elasticity may have been found in space. The first evidence of the possible existence of C 24 - a flat two-dimensional molecule, one atom thick, possibly a "small piece of graphene - in space has been found. To confirm beyond a doubt that what has been detected is actually C 24, laboratory spectroscopy would have to be carried out, something which is practically impossible with current

The largest known molecules in space, fullerenes, do not occur in hydrogen-poor environments as previously thought. Fullerenes are very stable molecules and difficult to destroy, they have a structure very similiar to that of a soccer ball and made of 60 carbon atoms arranged in three-dimensional spherical structures and patterns of alternative hexagons and pentagons. These molecules were synthesized in the laboratory by chemists Harold Kroto and Richard Smalley, who thus received the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Kroto and Smalley, according to the laboratory experiments, believed that

As we enhance the spatial resolution and sensitivity of spectro-polarimetric measurements, it becomes increasingly evident that highly dynamic magnetic fields permeate the whole quiet Sun. These weak magnetic flux concentrations emerge somewhat preferentially in granules, where plasma motions are more favorable for the magnetic fields to rise across the solar atmosphere. Surprisingly (due to their weak nature), organized structures in the form of Omega-shaped loops survive convective motions and reach higher layers, at least the lower chromosphere (Martínez González & Bellot Rubio 2009

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