Context. Extremely metal-poor (XMP) galaxies are chemically, and possibly dynamically, primordial objects in the local Universe. Aims: Our objective is to characterize the H i content of the XMP galaxies as a class, using as a reference the list of 140 known local XMPs compiled by Morales-Luis et al. (2011). Methods: We have observed 29 XMPs, which

Long-duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) at z 1 are found in most cases to be accompanied by bright, broad-lined Type Ic supernovae (SNe Ic-BL). The highest-energy GRBs are mostly located at higher redshifts, where the associated SNe are hard to detect observationally. Here, we present early and late observations of the optical counterpart of the

We report the discovery of a planetary nebula centered on the poorly studied symbiotic binary star DT Ser. In a few other symbiotic stars spatially resolved nebulae have been discovered as well, but only one of them probably is a genuine planetary nebula, while the others are likely to originate in complex mass-ejection episodes from the

Context. The CoRoT short asteroseismic runs give us the opportunity to observe a large variety of late-type stars through their solar-like oscillations. We report the observation and modeling of the F5V star HD 175272. Aims: Our aim is to define a method for extracting as much information as possible from a noisy oscillation spectrum. Methods: We

The Hilda asteroid group and Jupiter Trojans (JTs) are populations of primitive minor bodies whose origins have not been conclusively determined. In the framework of the so-called Nice Model, they are icy bodies scattered from the Kuiper Belt in an early epoch of the Solar System (the Late Heavy Bombardment) and finally trapped in the stable

We have computed the Galactic Habitable Zones (GHZs) of the Andromeda galaxy (M31) based on the probability of terrestrial planet formation, which depends on the metallicity (Z) of the interstellar medium, and the number of stars formed per unit surface area. The GHZ was obtained from a chemical evolution model built to reproduce a metallicity