In the hierarchical formation scenario in which the outer halo of the Milky Way is the result of the continuous accretion of low-mass galaxies, a fraction of the Galactic globular cluster system might have originated in and been accreted with already extinct dwarf galaxies. In this context, we expect that the remnants of these progenitor galaxies

We present mid-infrared (MIR) imaging and spectroscopic data of the Seyfert 2 galaxy Mrk 1066 obtained with CanariCam (CC) on the 10.4-m Gran Telescopio CANARIAS (GTC). The galaxy was observed in imaging mode with an angular resolution of 0.24 arcsec (54 pc) in the Si-2 filter (8.7 μm). The image reveals a series of star-forming knots within the

Compact binary millisecond pulsars with main-sequence donors, often referred to as "redbacks," constitute the long-sought link between low-mass X-ray binaries and millisecond radio pulsars and offer a unique probe of the interaction between pulsar winds and accretion flows. We present a systematic study of eight nearby redbacks, using more than 100

The peculiar low-mass X-ray binary XSS J12270-4859, associated with the Fermi/LAT source 2FGL J1227.7-4853, was in an X-ray, gamma-ray and optical low-luminosity persistent state for about a decade until the end of 2012, when it entered into the dimmest state ever observed. The nature of the compact object has been controversial until the detection

We employ the first two years of data from the near-infrared, high-resolution SDSS-III/APOGEE spectroscopic survey to investigate the distribution of metallicity and α-element abundances of stars over a large part of the Milky Way disk. Using a sample of ≈10, 000 kinematically unbiased red-clump stars with ~5% distance accuracy as tracers, the [α

Context. Some observations indicate that the Milky Way has two inner components, a bulge and a long bar, which present a misalignment of Δα ≃ 20° that is against the predictions of some theoretical models that are based on numerical simulations. Aims: We wish to determine whether this misalignment between the bar and the bulge can be observed in