Our new infrared spectra of asteroid 24 Themis indicate water ice is not only present but also widespread on its surface. Our identification of water ice agrees with recent preliminary results, and our spectra also show evidence of organic compounds on this asteroid.

We study the evolution of the red sequence and the blue cloud since z ~ 1 to present in GOODS-S field for MB ≤ -20 and M* ≥ 1010 M&sun; selected galaxies. We segregate the galaxies in early-type galaxies (ET, E/S0/Sa), and late-type galaxies (LT, Sb-Irr) by their position in the concentration-asymmetry plane, while in passive and star-forming by

Spectra of high-metallicity [12+log(O/H) >~ 8.2] HII regions, where oxygen auroral lines are measurable in both the O+ and O++ zones, have been extracted from the Data Release 6 of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Our final sample consists of 181 SDSS spectra of HII regions in galaxies in the redshift range from ~0.025 to ~0.17. The t2,O-t3,O

Low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) that show thermonuclear bursts are ideal sources for constraining the equation of state of neutron star matter. The lack of independent distance measurements for most of these sources, however, prevent a systematic exploration of the masses and radii of the neutron stars, hence limiting the equation-of-state studies

We present preliminary asteroseismic results from Kepler on three G-type stars. The observations, 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 may be clearly distinguished in each star. We discuss the

Aims: We report on the unusual distant activity of the dynamically new comet C/2007 D1 (LINEAR), observed at rh = 9.7 AU post-perihelion. This comet is particularly interesting because of its quite large perihelion distance (rq = 8.8 AU). Methods: We analyse V and R band images taken at the TNG telescope to characterise the dust coma of the comet