We present the detection of fullerenes C 60 and C 70 in the star-forming region IC 348 of the Perseus molecular cloud. Mid-IR vibrational transitions of C 60 and C 70 in emission are found in Spitzer IRS spectra of individual stars (LRLL 1, 2, 58), in the averaged spectrum of three other cluster stars (LRLL 21, 31, and 67) and in spectra obtained at four interstellar locations distributed across the IC 348 region. Fullerene bands appear widely distributed in this region with higher strength in the lines of sight of stars at the core of the cluster. Emission features consistent with the three

Galaxy formation remains one of the major open problems in astrophysics today. There is a wide range of mechanisms that control the transformation of gas into stars in galaxies, compounded by the cosmological evolution of structure, along with complex feedback processes. An observational approach targets general trends in large distributions of galaxies. On a diagram plotting colour versus mass, the distribution of galaxies gets split into a bimodal structure, featuring a region of red, passively-evolving galaxies (termed the red sequence), and a so-called blue cloud, made up of star-forming

Early-type galaxies (ETGs) were historically considered as ‘boring’ objects by astronomers. This galaxy category encompasses lenticular and elliptical galaxies, which were thought as morphologically featureless systems with no star formation and therefore of little interest. However, with the advent of powerful integral field spectrographs and deep photometric images, ETGs have demonstrated not to be such ‘boring’ systems, but complex galaxies with a variety of dynamical, photometric, and stellar population’s properties. In fact, a major question of current astrophysics is still to determine

During the final stages of their lives, stars with masses between one and eight times the mass of the Sun evolve along the asymptotic giant branch (AGB). AGB stars expand and loss a major fraction of their mass through stellar winds. The low temperature and high density of AGB winds provide ideal conditions for the condensation of dust grains in their circumstellar envelopes. Gas and dust are expelled into the interstellar medium, becoming an essential component for the formation of new stars and planets. Therefore, studying the type of dust (solid state organic or inorganic components) and