The life cycles of massive stars have a major impact on the evolution of galaxies, while in turn, position in galaxy has a major impact on the efficiency and type of star formation which occurs in a molecular cloud (see e.g. Luna et al. 2006). However, exactly how massive stars form, on what timescales, and how they shape their environments during this active and energetic phase is poorly understood.

The jet phenomenon lasts at least a million years for young, solar-like, stars and it occurs during a wide variety of young stellar object (YSO) phases. This includes the period when the source is highly embedded (Class 0) to when it becomes optically visible for the first time as a classical T Tauri star (Class II). Here I briefly discuss some of the properties of jets from the youngest objects.

The outer haloes of massive elliptical galaxies are dark-matter dominated regions where stellar orbits have longer dynamical timescales than the central regions and therefore better preserve their formation history. Dynamical models out to large radii suffer from a degeneracy between mass and orbital structure, as the outer kinematics are unable to resolve higher moments of the line-of-sight velocity distribution. We mitigate this degeneracy for a sample of quiescent, massive, nearby ellipticals by determining their mass distributions independently using a non-parametric method on X-ray observations of the surrounding hot interstellar medium. We then create dynamical models using photometric and kinematic constraints consisting of integral-eld, long-slit and planetary nebulae (PNe) data extending to ~50 kpc. The rst two galaxies of our sample, NGC 5846 and NGC 1399, were found to have very shallow pro jected light distributions with a power law index of ~1.5 and a dark matter content of 70–80% at 50 kpc. Spherical Jeans models of the data show that, in the outer haloes of both galaxies, the pro jected velocity dispersions are almost inde- pendent of the anisotropy and that the PNe prefer the lower end of the range of mass distributions consistent with the X-ray data. Using the N-body code NMAGIC, we cre- ated axisymmetric models of NGC 5846 using the individual PNe radial velocities in a likelihood method and found them to be more constraining than the binned velocity dispersions. Characterising the orbital structure in terms of spherically averaged proles of the velocity dispersions we nd σψ > σr > σθ.

By isolating the red clump giant population in the color-magnitude diagrams and inverting their star counts, we can obtain directly the density distribution of the old stellar population along the line of sight. We have applied this method to several near infrared surveys and obtained information on the disc, bulge and long bar. The disc is well fitted by an exponential distribution in both the galactocentric distance and height, flared and warped in the outer parts, and with a deficit of stars in the inner in-plane regions. The long bar occupies these in-plane regions within R < 3.9 kpc, with approximate dimensions of 7.8 kpc × 1.2 kpc × 0.2 kpc and a position angle of 40-45 deg. The bulge is a triaxial structure, possibly boxy, thicker and shorter than the long bar and with position angle of 10-30 deg.

The hot X-ray emitting interstellar medium of early type galaxies can be used in principle as a total mass tracer and a tool to determine the stellar orbital anisotropy, based on the hypothesis of hydrostatic equilibrium for it. Here the effects that deviations from equilibrium have on both estimates are shown, and a comparison is made with cases for which accurate optical and X-ray information are available.

To understand the slow growth of massive galaxies at z < 1, we have modeled how these galaxies populate dark matter halos. The models are constrained with the observed luminosity function and clustering of z < 1 red galaxies. In the most massive halos, much of the stellar mass resides within multiple satellite galaxies rather than a single central galaxy. Consequently, massive galaxies grow slowly within rapidly growing dark matter halos.

The U.S./German Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA, Figure 1) is a 2.5-meter infrared airborne telescope in a Boeing 747-SP flying in the stratosphere at altitudes as high as 45,000 feet where the atmospheric transmission averages ≥ 80% throughout the 0.3 - 1600 μm spectral region. SOFIA's first-generation instruments include broadband imagers, moderate resolution spectrographs capable of resolving broad features due to dust and large molecules, and high resolution spectrometers suitable for kinematic studies of molecular and atomic gas lines at km s−1 resolution. These and future instruments will enable SOFIA to make unique contributions to studies of the physics and chemistry of stellar evolution for many decades. Science flights will begin in 2010. A full operations schedule of at least 100 flights per year will begin in 2014 and will continue for 20 years. The SOFIA Guest Investigator (GI) program, open to investigators worldwide, will constitute the major portion of the SOFIA observing program.

The lithium problem in Ap-CP stars has been, for a long time, a subject of debate. Individual characteristics of CP stars, such as high abundance of the rare-earth elements presence of magnetic fields, complicate structure of the surface distribution of chemical elements, rapid oscillations of some CP-stars, make the detection of the lithium lines and the determination of the lithium abundance, a difficult task. During the International Meeting in Slovakia in 1996, the lithium problem in Ap-CP stars was discussed. The results of the Li study carried out in CrAO Polosukhina (1973–1976), the works of Hack & Faraggiana (1963), Wallerstein & Hack (1964), Faraggiana et al. (1992–1996) formed the basis of the International project ‘Lithium in the cool CP-stars with magnetic fields’. The main goal of the project was, using systematical observations of Ap-CP stars with phase rotation in the spectral regions of the resonance doublet Li I 6708 Å and subordinate 6104 Å lithium lines with different telescopes, to create a database, which will permit to explain the physical origin of anomalous Li abundance in the atmospheres of these stars.

Cosmology contributes a good deal to the investigation of variation of fundamental physical constants. High resolution data is available and allows for detailed analysis over cosmological distances and a multitude of methods were developed. The raised demand for precision requires a deep understanding of the limiting errors involved. The achievable accuracy is under debate and current observing proposals max out the capabilities of today's technology. The question for self-consistency in data analysis and effective techniques to handle unknown systematic errors is of increasing importance. This work is motivated by numerous findings of different groups that partially are in disagreement witch each other. A large part of these discrepancies reflects the different methods of handling systematic errors. Evidently systematics are not yet under control or fully understood. We try to emphasize the importance to take these errors, namely calibration issues, into account and put forward some measures adapted to the problem. Alternative approaches for some of the steps involved are introduced.

Recent studies of the Cosmic Microwave Background have provided us with a high quality image of the Universe when it was only 380,000 years old. At that time it was a near-uniform mixture of hydrogen, helium, dark matter and radiation, with no galaxies, no stars, no planets and no people, indeed no atomic nuclei heavier than Lithium. Under the action of gravity, the weak fluctuations observed in the microwave sky evolved into the extraordinarliy complex structure of our present Universe. I will show how supercomputer simulations can be used to demonstrate that such evolution does indeed reproduce the observed properties of today's galaxies and large-scale structures, thus confirming the extraordinary assumptions of the current structure formation paradigm. Only a quarter of the energy density of the present Universe is in gravitating matter; only a sixth of this matter is made of atoms or other known particles; only 5 percent of this baryonic material is currently inside galaxies. Most of today's Universe is in the form of Dark Energy; most of the gravitating matter is Dark Matter; and most of the baryons remain unseen in intergalactic space. The properties of the fluctuations measured in the microwave sky suggest that they originated very close to the Big Bang as quantum fluctuations of the vacuum itself. Everything has formed from nothing.

The dense cores of X-ray emitting gaseous halos of large elliptical galaxies with temperatures below about 0.8 keV show two prominent Fe XVII emission features, which provide a sensitive diagnostic tool to measure the effects of resonant scattering. We present here high-resolution spectra of five bright nearby elliptical galaxies, obtained with the Reflection Grating Spectrometers (RGS) on the XMM-Newton satellite. The spectra for the cores of four of the galaxies show the Fe XVII line at 15.01 Angstrom being suppressed by resonant scattering. The data for NGC 4636 in particular allow the effects of resonant scattering to be studied in detail. Using deprojected density and temperature profiles for this galaxy obtained with the Chandra satellite, we model the radial intensity profiles of the strongest resonance lines, accounting for the effects of resonant scattering, for different values of the characteristic turbulent velocity. Comparing the model to the data, we find that the isotropic turbulent velocities on spatial scales smaller than about 1 kpc are less than 100 km/s and the turbulent pressure support in the galaxy core is smaller than 5% of the thermal pressure at the 90% confidence level, and less than 20% at 99% confidence. Neglecting the effects of resonant scattering in spectral fitting of the inner 2 kpc core of NGC 4636 will lead to underestimates of the chemical abundances of Fe and O by about 10-20%.

Observations of CO molecules in the millimetrer domain at high redshift (larger than 1), have provided interesting informations about star formation efficiency, and its evolution with redshift. Due to the difficulty of the detections, selection effects are important. The detection if often due to gravitational amplification. Objects selected by their (far)infrared flux, are in general associated to ULIRGS, mergers with starburst in the nuclear regions. Quasars have been selected as powerful optical sources, and have been found to be associated to starbursts, rich in gas. The gas fraction appears to be much higher at redshift greater than 1. Quasars allow to probe the end of the reionisation period, and the relation between bulge and black hole mass. However these selection bias could have led us to miss some gaseous galaxies, with low-efficiency of star formation, such as the more quiescent objects selected by their BzK colors at z = 1.5 or 2.

The H.E.S.S. Galactic Plane Survey (GPS) has revealed a large number of Galactic Sources, including Pulsar Wind Nebulae (PWN), Supernova Remnants (SNRs), giant molecular clouds, star formation regions and compact binary systems, as well as a number of unidentified objects, or dark sources, for which no obvious counterparts at other wavelengths have yet been found. We will review the latest results from the GPS observations and discuss the most interesting cases.

The study of Globular Cluster (GC) stellar populations (SPs) addresses fundamental astrophysical questions ranging from stellar structure, evolution and dynamics, to Galaxy formation. Indeed, they represent: i) fossils from the remote and violent epoch of Galaxy formation, ii) test particles for studying Galaxy dynamics and stellar dynamical model, and iii) fiducial templates for studying integrated light from distant stellar systems. In particular, high resolution spectroscopy of GC SPs provides abundance patterns which are crucial for understanding the formation and chemical enrichment time–scale of the host galaxy. Here the major results on Galactic GCs based on high-resolution near-infrared (near–IR) spectroscopy are briefly reviewed. Optical and IR spectroscopy are complementary tools to investigate SPs in different environments, the latter being more suitable in the case of moderately–high extinction regions (AV≥2) and high metallicity.

We present Spitzer Space Telescope observations of 11 regions in the Orion Nebula all southeast of the Bright Bar. Our Cycle 5 program obtained deep spectra with both the IRS short-high (SH) and long-high (LH) modules with aperture grid patterns chosen to very closely match the same area in the nebula. Previous IR missions observed only the inner few arcmin (the ‘Huygens’ region). The extreme sensitivity of Spitzer in the 10-37 μm spectral range permitted us to measure many lines of interest to much larger distances from the exciting star θ1 Ori C.

Elliptical galaxies comprise primarily old stars, which collectively generate a long-lasting feedback via stellar mass-loss and Type Ia SNe. This feedback can be traced by X-ray-emitting hot gas in and around such galaxies, in which little cool gas is typically present. However, the X-ray-inferred mass, energy, and metal abundance of the hot gas are often found to be far less than what are expected from the feedback, particularly in so-called low LX/LB ellipticals. This “missing” stellar feedback is presumably lost in galaxy-wide outflows, which can play an essential role in galaxy evolution (e.g., explaining the observed color bi-modality of galaxies). We are developing a model that can be used to properly interpret the X-ray data and to extract key information about the dynamics of the feedback and its interplay with galactic environment.

Regions of intense velocity-shears are identified on statistical grounds in nearby diffuse molecular gas: they form conspicuous thin (~ 0.03 pc) and parsec-long structures that do not bear the signatures of shocked gas. Several straight substructures, ~ 3 mpc thick, have been detected at different position-angles within one of them. Two exhibit the largest velocity-shears ever measured far from star forming regions, up to 780 kms−1pc−1. Their position-angles are found to be also those of 10-parsec striations in the I(100μm) dust emission of the large scale environment. The B field projections, where available in these fields, are parallel both to the parsec- and to one of the milliparsec-scale shears. These findings put in relation the small-scale intermittent facet of the gas velocity field and the large scale structure of the magnetic fields.

Variable speed of light theories (VSL) are interesting because they could solve several cosmological puzzles. In this work we study the thermodynamics and Newtonian limit of the varying speed of light theory developed by J. Magueijo (Magueijo 2000). In the covariant and locally Lorentz invariant VSL proposed by Magueijo c is a dimensionless dynamical scalar field c=c0eψ, where c0 is a constant. The matter and gravitational lagrangians are multiplied by the factors ebψ and eaψ respectively.

My talk will focus on the early evolution of low mass objects. I will discuss the main uncertainties on current evolutionary models and the effects of rotation, magnetic field and early accretion history on young object's structure. I will also present possible solutions to the well known spread in HRD observed in star formation regions for objects of a few Myr old.