An analysis of the high-energy emission from IGR J16393–4643 is presented using data from INTEGRAL and XMM-Newton. The source is persistent in the 20–40 keV band at an average flux of $5.1\times10^{-11}$ergs cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$, with variations in intensity by at least an order of magnitude. A pulse period of 912$\,{\pm}\,$3 s was discovered in the ISGRI and EPIC light curves. The source spectrum is a strongly-absorbed ($N_{\mathrm{H}}=(2.5\,{\pm}\,0.2)\times10^{23}$ cm$^{-2}$) power law that features a high-energy cutoff above 15 keV. Two iron emission lines at 6.4 and 7.1 keV, an iron absorption edge $\gtrsim$7.1 keV, and a soft excess emission of $7\times10^{-15}$ergs cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$ between 0.5–2 keV, are detected in the EPIC spectrum. The shape of the spectrum does not change with the pulse. Its persistence, pulsation, and spectrum place IGR J16393–4643 among the class of heavily-absorbed HMXBs. The improved position from EPIC is R.A. (J2000)$=16^{\mathrm{h}}39^{\mathrm{m}}05.4^{\mathrm{s}}$ and Dec.$=-46^{\circ}42'12''$ ($4''$ uncertainty) which is compatible with that of 2MASS J16390535–4642137.

The X-ray populations of spiral galaxies consist almost entirely of accreting X-ray binaries and supernova remnants. For the most luminous sources, it is possible to use X-ray spectroscopy and variability studies to gain insights into the nature of the sources. However, without unambiguously identified optical counterparts, it is impossible to definitively classify sources as, e.g. high-mass or low-mass X-ray binaries. The nearby interacting galaxy M51 is one of the best-studied galaxies across all wavelengths. At a distance of around 8 Mpc, it is possible to resolve features on scales of a few parsecs both in the X-ray and the optical. Recently, M51 was observed with the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the Hubble Space Telescope as part of a Hubble Legacy program. M51 has also been observed 3 times with the Chandra X-ray observatory. Combining these two datasets, we present initial results on the optical environments of M51 X-ray sources as the first part of a truly multi-wavelength study of X-ray sources in nearby galaxies.

NGC 5102 has an unusually low number of XRBs. The deficit of LMXBs is even more striking because some of these sources may in fact be HMXBs, produced in one of the two recent bursts of star formation $\sim$15 and $\sim$300 Myr ago. Our UV-optical spectral synthesis analysis demonstrates that a significant fraction ($>$50%) of the stars in this galaxy are comparatively young ($<$3 Gyr). NGC 5102 also has an usually low number of globular clusters for its mass, luminosity and environment.

We discuss the relationship between the XRB population, the globular cluster population and the relative youth of the majority of the stars in this galaxy. We intend to extend our investigation of the relationship between XRB populations, star-formation history and globular clusters to a sample of ten early-type galaxies with a range of star-formation histories and investigate the implications for models of LMXB formation and evolution.

I present an overview of theory and observations of FUV-photon and X-ray dominated regions (PDRs and XDRs), with a discussion of some recent results.

Millimeter-wave (mm-wave) absorption profiles toward extragalactic sources consistently find just diffuse (occasionally perhaps translucent) neutral gas—low/moderate density and extinction—along even some very long, dark lines of sight. CO, often heavily fractionated and mimicking the appearance of dark gas in emission, occasionally absent in emission even when present in absorption, is not the dominant form of carbon in these regions (presumably it is C+) yet the abundances of many other molecules resemble those seen in TMC-1. Some species (OH, HCO+, C2H and C3H2) turn on with high abundances just when H2 does; others (HCN, HNC, CN) require slightly higher $N$(H2) and yet others (CS and other sulfur-bearing species,NH3 and H2CO) even higher $N$(H2). The systematics and implications of these recent discoveries are discussed here.

The benefits of placing ultraviolet (UV) spectrographs in space were first pointed out by Spitzer (1946) and Spitzer & Zabriskie (1959), with much of the emphasis on absorption-line measurements of interstellar atoms and molecules. The first UV observations of the diffuse interstellar medium took place in the early 1970s, using sounding rockets, which were followed by a series of orbital instruments starting in the later 1970s and extending almost to the present time. Many of these observations have provided information on the chemistry of the diffuse ISM, and will be emphasized here. The most abundant molecule in space, H$_2$, is not readily observed in other wavelength bands and was first detected by a UV sounding rocket experiment (Carruthers 1970). Thereafter a series of orbital instruments, starting with the Copernicus satellite in 1972 and culminating with the launch of FUSE in 1999, carried out broad surveys of molecular hydrogen in a variety of ISM environments (e.g., Spitzer et al. 1973; Snow et al. 2000; Shull et al. 2000; see also the review by Shull & Beckwith 1982). The UV observations of electronic transitions of H$_2$, including lines arising from excited rotational levels of the ground state, have provided a wealth of information on not only the chemistry of the diffuse ISM, but also the composition and physical conditions. The second most abundant molecule in the diffuse ISM, CO, also has numerous electronic transitions in the UV, and has been widely observed by many different instruments, most usefully the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) (e.g., Lambert et al. 1994; Sheffer et al. 2002). Valuable information on diffuse ISM chemistry, isotopic composition, and physical conditions has been provided by these observations. A few additional molecules, all of them diatomics such as OH and N$_2$, have been detected through UV absorption-line observations, and many others have been sought unsuccessfully. The Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, expected to be installed aboard the HST in 2007, will have enhanced UV sensitivity and will provide information on molecular abundances in denser clouds than previously studied. One of the high priorities will be the search for electronic transitions of complex organic molecules such as PAHs.

3C 273 is one of the brightest and best studied quasars. It has been observed for 770 ks with the imager IBIS (FoV 12 deg) on board INTEGRAL. To achieve the best possible S/N the dataset has been screened using several criteria indicating the quality of the data (i.e., number of good time intervals, etc). We describe the necessary tools and methods to analyze data of deep fields.

Active Galactic Nuclei emit a substantial portion of their bolometric luminosities in X-rays. For example, the knots in radio jets are prominent sources of synchrotron X-rays while the hotspots of the brightest FRIIs emit self-synchrotron or Inverse Compton radiation. Most high-energy studies on flat-spectrum radio sources have been conducted for blazars which are dominant at $\gamma$-rays.

Augusto et al. (1998) have built a sample of 55 flat-spectrum radio sources dominated by structures (knots, hotspots, etc.) $\sim$0.1–2 kpc away from the nucleus. Seventeen (31%) of these are detected in X-rays (they tend to be the radio strongest) evenly splitting, morphologically, both at optical (radio) bands: nine QSO/BLLac (core-jets) on one-side; eight Galaxy/Sy2 (CSO/MSO/FRII) on the other. We have identified five confirmed compact/medium symmetric objects (CSO/MSOs) as X-ray emitters. A comparable type of source to CSO/MSOs is the physically similar (1–15 kpc) compact steep spectrum source (CSS), 28/129 (22%) of which are detected in X-rays, from a literature-selected sample (the percentage is smaller than for the 55-source sample due to a lower $<\!\!S_{4.85}\!\!>$). A 95% conf. level relation is found for CSSs: $S_X \propto (S_{4.85})^{0.6}$ and we found undistinguishable radio/X-ray properties for both the 55-source and CSS samples: clearly, their similar morphologies (e.g. knots in jets) stand up stronger than their radical radio spectrum differences.

Only two sources among the 55 (4%) have $\gamma$-ray detections and they seem quite abnormal (in $\alpha_{x\gamma}$ values, at least)–one of them is in a Sy2, not in a blazar.

We suggest that the ultraluminous X-ray sources located in external galaxies (ULXs) are supercritical accretion disks like that in SS433, observed close to the disk axis. We estimate parameters of the SS433 funnel, where the relativistic jets are formed. Emergent X-ray spectrum in the proposed model of the multicolor funnel (MCF) is calculated. The spectrum can be compared with those of ULXs. We predict a complex absorption-line spectrum with broad and shallow K$\alpha$/Kc blends of the most abundant heavy elements and particular temporal variability. Another critical idea comes from observations of nebulae around the ULXs. We present results of 3D-spectroscopy of nebulae of two ULXs located in Holmberg II and NGC6946. In both cases the nebula is found to be powered by the central black hole. The nebulae are compared with SS433 nebula (W50).

We studied the population of X-ray point sources in the elliptical galaxy Centaurus A, using archival Chandra data. Within a radius of 10 arcmin from the centre we detected 272 sources. Of these approximately half are LMXBs with the rest being CXB sources. The spatial distribution of the LMXBs is found to be consistent with the distribution of K-band light. We constrain the luminosity function (LF) of the X-ray sources down to ${\sim} 2\times 10^{36}$ erg s$^{-1}$. The X-ray LF of the LMXBs flattens significantly below $L_X\sim 5\times 10^{37}$ erg s$^{-1}$ and follows the $dN/dL\propto L^{-1}$ law in agreement with results from the bulges of spiral galaxies.

Chandra and XMM detect X-rays emitted during accretion onto supermassive black holes, even when they are highly obscured. I review what has been learned about the cosmic evolution of the X-ray luminosity functions and the reconstruction of the accretion history of supermassive black holes from extensive follow-up observations of both deep and wide-area Chandra X-ray surveys.

Over 150 extrasolar planets are known to orbit sun-like stars. A growing number of them (9 to date) are transiting “hot Jupiters” whose physical characteristics can be measured. Atmospheres of two of these planets have already been detected. We summarize the atmosphere detections and useful upper limits, focusing on the MOST albedo upper limit and II exosphere detection for IID 209458b as the most relevant for photochemical models. We describe our photochemical model for hot Jupiters and present a summary explanation of the main results: a low gas-phase abundance of hydrocarbons; an absence of hydrocarbon hazes; and a large reservoir of II atoms in the upper atmospheres of hot Jupiters. We conclude by relating these model results to the relevant observational data.

We present X-ray properties of NGC 300 point sources, extracted from 66 ksec of XMM-Newton data taken in 2000 December and 2001 January. A total of 163 sources was detected in the energy range of 0.3–6 keV. We report on the global properties of the sources detected inside the $D_{25}$ optical disk, such as the hardness ratio and X-ray fluxes, and spectral fitting of the brightest sources. We also present some properties of their optical counterparts found in B, V, and R images from the 2.2 m MPG/ESO telescope. Furthermore, we cross-correlate the X-ray sources with SIMBAD, the USNO-A2.0 catalog, and radio catalogues.

We study high mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs) in the Galaxy using data of the INTEGRAL observatory. High sensitivity survey of the whole Galaxy with a possibility to detect absorbed sources significantly enlarged our sample of HMXBs in a comparison with the previous studies. Large fraction of detected high mass X-ray binaries is highly photoabsorbed. We investigated the HMXBs distribution along the Galactic plane and found their strong concentrations toward Galactic spiral arms, confirming previous results of Grimm et al. (2002) obtained using smaller sample of sources. We conclude that the mapping of Galactic HMXBs should be important tool to trace the star formation regions at the opposite side of the Galaxy.

We present the results of a Chandra observation made of the nearby spiral galaxy NGC 7793: the effective exposure time of this observation was 49094 seconds. Twenty-two discrete sources were identified at a minimum of a 3$\sigma$ level to an estimated limiting luminosity of ∼$2\times10^{36}$ ergs sec$^{-1}$. We have performed a spectral analysis of the known ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX) in this galaxy: statistically-acceptable fits to the spectrum can be obtained with either a power law model, a bremsstrahlung model or a DISKBB model. We have also searched for counterparts at multiple wavelengths to these sources: based on this search, we have classified two supernova remnants, one HII region and two foreground stars.

We present results from an ongoing program to map the spatial distribution of ices in dark cloud cores with the Spitzer Space Telescope and VLT-ISAAC. The ice maps are used to directly trace the freeze-out of CO and the formation of H2O, CH3OH and CO2.

We present the results of an on-going program for the identification and characterization of optical counterparts of Ultra-Luminous X-ray (ULX) sources. The targets have been selected from the catalogues by Colbert & Ptak (2002) and Swartz et al. (2004). A clear identification based on unambiguous optical spectral features was possible for 26 objects. A large number of objects result to be QSOs at higher redshift than the putative parent galaxy, and other ULXs seem to be associated to HII regions. In a few cases the optical counterpart results a foreground star in our galaxy. The observational program will continue to obtain a representative sample for statistical studies.

An asteroid family is a group of asteroids with similar orbits and spectra that was produced by a collisional breakup of a large parent body. To identify asteroid families, researchers look for clusters of asteroid positions in the space of proper orbital elements. These elements, being more constant over time than osculating orbital elements, provide a dynamical criterion of whether a group of bodies has a common ancestor. More than fifty asteroid families have been identified to date. Their analysis produced several important insights into the physics of large scale collisions, dynamical processes affecting small bodies in the Solar System, and surface and interior properties of asteroids.

The Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) is an international and multi-agency space mission that will study the cosmos in the energy range 10 keV – 300 GeV. The GLAST Science Support Center (GSSC) is the scientific community's interface with GLAST. The GSSC will provide data, analysis software and documentation. In addition, the GSSC will administer the guest investigator program for NASA HQ. Consequently, the GSSC will provide proposal preparation tools to assist proposers in assessing the feasibility of observing sources of interest.

INTEGRAL is the first gamma-ray astronomy mission with a sufficient sensitivity and angular resolution combination appropriate to the detection and identification of considerable numbers of gamma-ray emitting sources. The large field of view enables INTEGRAL to survey the Galactic Plane on a regular ($\sim$weekly) basis as part of the core programme. The first source catalogue, based on the 1st year of core programme data ($\sim$5 Msec) has been completed and published (Bird et al. 2004). It contained 123 $\gamma$-ray sources (24 HMXB, 54 LMXB, 28 “unknown”, plus 17 others) - sufficient numbers for a reasonable statistical analysis of their global properties. The detection of previously unknown $\gamma$-ray emitting sources generally exhibiting high intrinsic absorption, which do not have readily identifiable counterparts at other wavelengths, is intriguing. The substantial fraction of unclassified $\gamma$-ray sources suggests they must constitute a significant family of objects. In this paper we review the global characteristics of the known galactic sources as well as the unclassified objects.