Measurements in the infrared wavelength domain allow direct assessment of the physical state and energy balance of cool matter in space, enabling the detailed study of the processes that govern the formation and evolution of stars and planetary systems in galaxies over cosmic time. Previous infrared missions revealed a great deal about the obscured Universe, but were hampered by limited sensitivity.

SPICA takes the next step in infrared observational capability by combining a large 2.5-meter diameter telescope, cooled to below 8 K, with instruments employing ultra-sensitive detectors. A combination of passive cooling and mechanical coolers will be used to cool both the telescope and the instruments. With mechanical coolers the mission lifetime is not limited by the supply of cryogen. With the combination of low telescope background and instruments with state-of-the-art detectors SPICA provides a huge advance on the capabilities of previous missions.

SPICA instruments offer spectral resolving power ranging from R ~50 through 11 000 in the 17–230 μm domain and R ~28.000 spectroscopy between 12 and 18 μm. SPICA will provide efficient 30–37 μm broad band mapping, and small field spectroscopic and polarimetric imaging at 100, 200 and 350 μm. SPICA will provide infrared spectroscopy with an unprecedented sensitivity of ~5 × 10−20 W m−2 (5σ/1 h)—over two orders of magnitude improvement over what earlier missions. This exceptional performance leap, will open entirely new domains in infrared astronomy; galaxy evolution and metal production over cosmic time, dust formation and evolution from very early epochs onwards, the formation history of planetary systems.

We present observations of 50 deg2 of the Mopra carbon monoxide (CO) survey of the Southern Galactic Plane, covering Galactic longitudes l = 300–350° and latitudes |b| ⩽ 0.5°. These data have been taken at 0.6 arcmin spatial resolution and 0.1 km s−1spectral resolution, providing an unprecedented view of the molecular clouds and gas of the Southern Galactic Plane in the 109–115 GHz J = 1–0 transitions of 12CO, 13CO, C18O, and C17O.

We present a series of velocity-integrated maps, spectra, and position-velocity plots that illustrate Galactic arm structures and trace masses on the order of ~106 M⊙ deg−2, and include a preliminary catalogue of C18O clumps located between l = 330–340°. Together with the information about the noise statistics of the survey, these data can be retrieved from the Mopra CO website and the PASA data store.

Quasars with flat radio spectra and one-sided, arc-second scale, ≈ 100 mJy GHz radio jets are found to have similar scale X-ray jets in about 60% of such objects, even in short 5 to 10 ks Chandra observations. Jets emit in the GHz band via synchrotron radiation, as known from polarization measurements. The X-ray emission is explained most simply, i.e. with the fewest additional parameters, as inverse Compton (iC) scattering of cosmic microwave background (cmb) photons by the relativistic electrons in the jet. With physics based assumptions, one can estimate enthalpy fluxes upwards of 1046 erg s−1, sufficient to reverse cooling flows in clusters of galaxies, and play a significant role in the feedback process which correlates the masses of black holes and their host galaxy bulges. On a quasar-by-quasar basis, we can show that the total energy to power these jets can be supplied by the rotational energy of black holes with spin parameters as low as a = 0.3. For a few bright jets at redshifts less than 1, the Fermi gamma ray observatory shows upper limits at 10 Gev which fall below the fluxes predicted by the iC/cmb mechanism, proving the existence of multiple relativistic particle populations. At large redshifts, the cmb energy density is enhanced by a factor (1+z)4, so that iC/cmb must be the dominant mechanism for relativistic jets unless their rest frame magnetic field strength is hundreds of micro-Gauss.

Accretion disks are observed around young stellar objects such as T Tauri stars. In order to complete the star formation, particles in the disk need to loose angular momentum in order to be accreted into the central object. The magneto-rotational instability (MRI) is probably the mechanism responsible for a magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence that leads to disk accretion, which implies the disk particles to be coupled with the magnetic filed lines. As the temperature in the disk is low, we considered, besides the viscous heating mechanism often included in the models by means of the α - prescription, the damping of Alfvén waves as an additional heating source. In particular, we show that the mechanism derived that couples the turbulent and non-linear damping mechanisms of Alfvén waves proved to be very efficient, generating temperatures almost one order of magnitude higher than those mechanisms considered independently.

Obliquity (axial tilt) and its variability could play an important role in the climate and habitability of a planet. We explore the spin-axis dynamics of two specific habitable zone exoplanets, Kepler-62f and Kepler-186f, using numerical and analytical techniques. Based on our current understanding of their orbital architecture, we find that, in contrast with the typical conditions in the Solar System, Kepler-62f and 186f should have low obliquity variations except in fine-tuned conditions. Extra undetected planetary companions and/or the existence of a satellite could either stabilize or destabilize obliquities at a variety of values.