We report the detection of water ice and organics on the surface of asteroid 24 Themis. Our rotationally-resolved infrared (2-4 µm) spectra of this asteroid indicate that the ice and organics are widespread on its surface. The spectral difference with other asteroids observed in the same manner, makes 24 Themis unique so far. Our identification of

We present the discovery of fast infrared/X-ray correlated variability in the black hole transient GX 339-4. The source was observed with subsecond time resolution simultaneously with Very Large Telescope/Infrared Spectrometer And Array Camera and Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer/Proportional Counter Array in 2008 August, during its persistent low-flux

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This report is on activities of the Division at the General Assembly in Rio de Janeiro. Summaries of scientific activities over the past triennium have been published in Transactions A, see Melrose et al. (2008), Klimchuk et al. (2008), Martinez Pillet et al. (2008) and Bougeret et al. (2008). The business meeting of the three Commissions were

The black hole X-ray transient, XTE J1118+480, has now twice been observed in outbursts - 2000 and 2005 - and on both occasions remained in the low/hard X-ray spectral state. Here we present radio, infrared, optical, soft X-ray and hard X-ray observations of the more recent outburst. We find that the light curves have very different morphologies

We have discovered a new transient low-mass X-ray binary, NGC 6440 X-2, with Chandra/ACIS, RXTE/PCA, and Swift/XRT observations of the globular cluster NGC 6440. The discovery outburst (2009 July 28-31) peaked at LX ~ 1.5 × 1036 erg s-1 and lasted for 21, B>22 in quiescence from archival Hubble Space Telescope imaging, g'>22 during the August