The surface abundance of lithium on the Sun is 140 times less than the protosolar value, yet the temperature at the base of the surface convective zone is not hot enough to burn-and hence deplete-Li (refs 2, 3). A large range of Li abundances is observed in solar-type stars of the same age, mass and metallicity as the Sun, but such a range is

The discovery of very high energy (VHE) gamma-ray emitting X-ray binaries has triggered an intense effort to better understand the particle acceleration, absorption, and emission mechanisms in compact binary systems, which provide variable conditions along eccentric orbits. Despite this, the nature of some of these systems, and of the accelerated

Based on a 5ks Chandra ACIS-I observation of M31 on Nov 11 2009, we report a dramatic brightening of CXOM31 J004321.1+411751, [aka r3-7 (Kong et al. 2002 ApJ 577, 738), source 437 (Pietsch, Freyberg, and Haberl 2005 A&A 434, 483), RX J0043.3+4117 (Supper et al. 2001 A&A 373, 63)]. The spectrum on Nov 11 can be well fit with a power law with photon

Context: Free-floating substellar candidates with estimated theoretical masses of as low as ∼5 Jupiter masses have been found in the ∼3 Myr old σ Orionis open cluster. As the overlap with the planetary mass domain increases, the question of how these objects form becomes important. The determination of their number density and whether a mass cut

We present Spitzer/IRAC and MIPS 24 μm observations for 28 brown dwarfs in the Upper Scorpius (UppSco) region. We find a disk fraction of 10.7%+8.7% -3.3%. One object shows a small excess at 24 μm but none at shorter wavelengths, and may be a candidate transition disk. Three objects show emission in the 10 μm silicate feature and we present

The currently active neutron star transient and atoll source Aql X-1 (Linares et al., ATEL #2288) has begun the transition from the hard (extreme island) state to the soft (banana) state (Rodriguez et al. ATEL #2299). This transition likely began around 2009 Nov 15 (MJD = 55150). The latest RXTE PCA observation (2009 Nov 17, MJD=55152.17+/-0.02, 2