We present Integral Field Spectroscopy observations of NGC 5253, a very nearby (d ˜ 3.8 Mpc) HII galaxy. This type of observations allows the detailed study of the interplay between gas, dust and stars. Here, we will focus on recent results related to the cause of the local enrichment of nitrogen found for this galaxy as well as on its kinematics

Massive (stellar mass ≥ 1011 M &sun;) galaxies at high redshift (z ≥ 1. 5) remain mysterious objects. Their extremely small sizes (effective radii of 1 - 2 kpc) make them as dense as globular clusters, whereas in the present day Universe similar mass systems are large with old and metal-rich stellar populations. In order to explore this development

The ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX) Holmberg II X-1 has been observed over four months in 2009/2010 by the Swift observatory. The source luminosity varied by a factor of up to 14, reaching a maximum 0.3-10 keV luminosity of ~3.0 × 1040 erg s-1. The spectral properties do not vary much over these four months, with only a slight monotonic increase

We report the discovery of burst oscillations at the spin frequency in ten thermonuclear bursts from the accreting millisecond X-ray pulsar (AMXP) IGR J17511-3057. The burst oscillation properties are, like those from the persistent AMXPs SAX J1808.4-3658 and XTE J1814-338, anomalous compared to burst oscillations from intermittent pulsars or non

The CoRoT exoplanet science team announces the discovery of CoRoT-11b, a fairly massive hot-Jupiter transiting a V = 12.9 mag F6 dwarf star (M_* = 1.27±0.05 M&sun;, R_* = 1.37±0.03 R&sun;, Teff = 6440±120 K), with an orbital period of P = 2.994329±0.000011 days and semi-major axis a = 0.0436±0.005 AU. The detection of part of the radial velocity

We study the impact of the environment on the evolution of galaxies in the zCOSMOS 10 k sample in the redshift range 0.1 ≤ z ≤ 1.0 over an area of ~1.5 deg2. The considered sample of secure spectroscopic redshifts contains about 8500 galaxies, with their stellar masses estimated by SED fitting of the multiwavelength optical to near-infrared (NIR)