A series of non-proteinogenic amino acids, most of them found quite commonly in the meteorites known as carbonaceous chondrites, were subjected to solid state radiolysis in vacuum to a total radiation dose of 3.2 MGy corresponding to 23% of the total dose expected to be taken by organic molecules buried in asteroids and meteorites since the

The presence of double-peaked/multi-component emission-line profiles in the spectra of galaxies is commonly identified by visual inspection. However, the identification of complex emission-line profiles by eye is unlikely for large data bases such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) or the integral field spectroscopy surveys of galaxies (e.g

We present near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopic observations of 28 X-ray and mid-infrared selected sources at a median redshift of z ˜ 0.8 in the Extended Groth Strip (EGS). To date this is the largest compilation of NIR spectra of active galactic nuclei (AGN) at this redshift. The data were obtained using the multi-object spectroscopic mode of the

Context. It is generally accepted that the presence of a giant planet is strongly dependent on the stellar metallicity. A stellar mass dependence has also been investigated, but this dependence does not seem as strong as the metallicity dependence. Even for metallicity, however, the exact form of the correlation has not been established. Aims: In

Stars more massive than about 3M⊙ are known to experience loops in the HR diagram during their core helium burning phase. Except for very massive stars the extent of their loops increases with the stellar mass. We show that a stellar evolution track for a 8M⊙ star computed with the new solar abundances [2] shows only a very tiny loop located near

While collisionally excited lines in H ii regions allow one to easily probe the chemical composition of the interstellar medium in galaxies, the possible presence of important temperature fluctuations casts some doubt on the derived abundances. To provide new insights into this question, we have carried out a detailed study of a giant H ii region