We discuss recent observations of stars located close to the symmetry plane of the Milky Way, and examine them in the context of theories of Galaxy formation and evolution. The kinematics, ages, and compositions of thin disk stars in the solar neighborhood display complex patterns, and interesting correlations. The Galactic disk does not seem to

Based on observations obtained with CoRoT, a space project operated by the French Space Agency, CNES, with participation of the Science Programme of ESA, ESTEC/RSSD, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Germany and Spain.

Following our study on the incidence, morphology and kinematics of the ionized gas in early-type galaxies, we now address the question of what is powering the observed nebular emission. To constrain the likely sources of gas excitation, we resort to a variety of ancillary data we draw from complementary information on the gas kinematics, stellar

We combine SAURON integral field data of a representative sample of local early-type, red sequence galaxies with Spitzer/Infrared Array Camera imaging in order to investigate the presence of trace star formation in these systems. With the Spitzer data, we identify galaxies hosting low-level star formation, as traced by polycyclic aromatic

We present Hubble Space Telescope photometry of young stars in NGC 5102, a nearby gas-rich post-starburst S0 galaxy with a bright young stellar nucleus. We use the IAC-pop/MinnIAC algorithm to derive the recent star formation history in three fields in the bulge and disk of NGC 5102. In the disk fields, the recent star formation rate has declined

We study the dependence of the relation on the redshift up to z = 3 for a sample of 96 quasars, the host galaxy luminosities of which are known. Black hole masses were estimated assuming virial equilibrium in the broad-line regions, while the host galaxy masses were inferred from their luminosities. With these data, we are able to pin down the