The soft X-ray transient GU Mus has been detected by XMM-Newton in the quiescent state. The source is very faint, with a 0.5-10.0 keV unabsorbed flux of =~ 1.1 x 10-14 ergs cm-2 s-1. The spectra is well fit by an absorbed powerlaw with a photon index of alpha = 1.6 +/- 0.4, close to the value seen when the source was in the low/hard state in Aug

We consider the process $mu o u_{e}ear{ u}_{mu} $in the framework of a two Higgs doublet model with flavor changing neutral currents (FCNC). Since FCNC generates in turn flavor changing charged currents in the lepton sector, this process appears at tree level mediated by a charged Higgs boson exchange. From the experimental upper limit for this

Analyses of the abundances of neutron-capture elements have led to the belief that these elements in metal-poor stars are r-process products with relative abundances closely resembling those found in the Solar system. This picture was challenged by Magain, who found that a pure r-process mix of the barium isotopes was inconsistent with the mix of

We discuss the effects of microlensing on the broad emission lines (BELs) of QSOs in the light of recent determinations of the size of the broad-line region (BLR) and its scaling with QSO luminosity. Microlensing by star-sized objects can produce significant amplifications in the BEL of some multiple-imaged QSOs, and could be very relevant for high

Northern Galactic planetary nebulae (PNs) are studied to disclose possible correlations between the morphology of the nebulae and the evolution of the central stars (CSs). To this end, we have built the best database available to date, accounting for homogeneity and completeness. We use updated statistical distances and an updated morphological

In this article, we hope to illustrate the great qualitative and quantitative strides that star-formation studies have taken in the past few years, by looking at three highlights from our own work using the ESO Very Large Telescope UT1, Antu, and its facility near-infrared camera/spectrograph, ISAAC. In particular, we have chosen examples which