In this paper we present beryllium (Be) abundances in a large sample of 41 extra-solar planet host stars, and for 29 stars without any known planetary-mass companion, spanning a large range of effective temperatures. The Be abundances were derived through spectral synthesis done in standard Local Thermodynamic Equilibrium, using spectra obtained

We present a spectral analysis of a sample of red-sequence galaxies identified by van Dokkum as dry merger remnants and ongoing dry mergers. Kinematics, stellar population absorption features and ionization from emission lines are derived. We find that approximately half of the sample showing strong tidal features have younger stellar populations

Context: .Free-floating planetary-mass objects have masses below the deuterium burning mass limit at about 13 Jupiter masses, and have mostly been found in very young open clusters. Their origin and relationship to stars and brown dwarfs are still a mystery. Aims: .The recent detection by direct imaging of three giant planets at wide separation (50

We have observed a sample of "ordinary" quasars, selected only on the grounds of their relative brightness in the visible, with the Turku Photopolarimeter on the 2.56m Nordic Optical Telescope, on La Palma, Canary Islands. The instrument permits us to obtain simultaneous UBVRI photometry and polarimetry of objects down to 16th magnitude, with the

To better understand how planets form, it is important to study planet occurrence rates as a function of stellar mass. However, estimating masses of field stars is often difficult. Over the past decade, a controversy has arisen about the inferred occurrence rate of gas-giant planets around evolved intermediate-mass stars - the so-called `retired A

We report on the first asteroseismic analysis of solar-type stars observed by Kepler. Observations of three G-type stars, made at one-minute cadence during the first 33.5 days of science operations, reveal high signal-to-noise solar-like oscillation spectra in all three stars: About 20 modes of oscillation can clearly be distinguished in each star