An essential component of galaxy formation theory is the stellar initial mass function (IMF) that describes the parent distribution of stellar mass in star-forming regions. We present observational evidence in a sample of early-type galaxies (ETGs) of a tight correlation between central velocity dispersion and the strength of several absorption

Most of the objects in the trans-Neptunian belt (TNb) and related populations move in prograde orbits with low eccentricity and inclination. However, the list of icy minor bodies moving in orbits with an inclination above 40° has increased in recent years. The origin of these bodies, and in particular of those objects in retrograde orbits, is not

The analysis of the amino acids present in Murchison meteorite and in other carbonaceous chondrites has revealed the presence of 66 different amino acids. Only eight of these 66 amino acids are proteinaceous amino acids used by the present terrestrial biochemistry in protein synthesis, the other 58 amino acids are somewhat "rare" or unusual or even

Aims: We aim to identify and characterize secondary eclipses in the original light curves of all published CoRoT planets using uniform detection and evaluation critetia. Methods: Our analysis is based on a Bayesian model selection between two competing models: one with and one without an eclipse signal. The search is carried out by mapping the

Table3.dat lists only radial velocities used for the identification of the binary as a close or wide binary candidate. Table4.dat contains the total number of spectra used for identification of the binary, the number of spectra from own spectroscopic follow-up observations and the statistical significance of the radial velocity variations. Table6

Astrophysical plasmas and magnetic fields are inextricably coupled to each other. But magnetic fields are elusive; they cannot be fully characterized with standard (spectroscopic) observational techniques. Fortunately, polarisation, the third fundamental property of light, encodes all the quantitative information on the magnetism of the objects we