If we were to observe the light reflected from an extrasolar planet, the portion of the planet reflecting starlight toward us would change due to rotation and orbital motion. Reflected light will come from the planet's surface, but also from the clouds and atmosphere. It is possible that these two planetary components have different rotation speeds

In the future, new robotic missions will be launch toward Mars with the objective of studying this planet from its surface. Phoenix (2007), Mars Science Laboratory (2009), Mars Sample Return, ExoMars, Astrobiological Field Laboratory or the Deep-drill lander (beyond 2009) are the missions already launched, approved or under planning by NASA for the

We have employed a reliable technique of classification of AGN based on the fit of their spectral energy distributions with a complete set of AGN types and starburst galaxy templates. We apply this method to a sample of 116 AGN selected for their X-ray and mid-infrared emissions in the extended Groth strip (96 with single detections and 20 with

Muon telescopes can have several applications, ranging from astrophysical to solar-terrestrial interaction studies, and fundamental particle physics. We show the design parameters, characterization and end-to-end simulations of a detector composed by a set of three parallel dual-layer scintillator planes, buried at fix depths ranging from 0.30 m to

Brown dwarfs are objects with masses, effective temperatures and luminosities intermediate between those of very low-mass stars and the most massive giant planets. In the last decade, numerous searches have revealed their ubiquitous presence in star forming regions and stellar clusters, orbiting stars and free-floating in the field. Hundreds of

Echo-tomgraphy is an indirect imaging technique which uses multiwavelength observations of LMXBs to constrain the fundamental parameters of these binaries. In particular, it uses time delays between X-ray and UV/optical light-curves as a function of orbital phase in order to map the reprocessing sites in a binary. Since previous works probe that