We investigate the environment in which direct-collapse black holes may form by analysing a cosmological, hydrodynamical simulation that is part of the First Billion Years project. This simulation includes the most relevant physical processes leading to direct collapse of haloes, most importantly, molecular hydrogen depletion by dissociation of H2

We present the results of a study investigating the dust attenuation law at z ≃ 5, based on synthetic spectral energy distributions (SEDs) calculated for a sample of N = 498 galaxies drawn from the First Billion Years (FiBY) simulation project. The simulated galaxies at z ≃ 5, which have M1500 ≤ -18.0 and 7.5 ≤ log(M/M}_{⊙}) ≤ 10.2, display a mass

We study the effect of baryons on the inner dark matter profile of the first galaxies using the First Billion Years simulation between z = 16 and 6 before secular evolution sets in. Using a large statistical sample from two simulations of the same volume and cosmological initial conditions, one with and one without baryons, we are able to directly

We report the detection of the first extrasolar planet, ET-1 (HD 102195b), using the Exoplanet Tracker (ET), a new-generation Doppler instrument. The planet orbits HD 102195, a young star with solar metallicity that may be part of the local association. The planet imparts radial velocity variability to the star with a semiamplitude of 63.4+/-2.0 m

We report the first quiescent detection of KV UMa, the optical counterpart of XTEJ1118 + 480, in the near-infrared. The observed magnitudes and colours are consistent with a K7-M0V star, at the distance of 1.4 +/- 0.2 kpc. The light curve shows strong orbital modulation with possible contamination from a superhump detected in the quiescent optical

We have obtained a low-resolution optical spectrum for one of the faintest cluster member candidates in Praesepe with the Optical System for Imaging and low Resolution Integrated Spectroscopy mounted on the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio de Canarias. We confirm spectroscopically the first L dwarf member in Praesepe, UGCS J084510.66+214817.1. We derived an