Recent work indicates that the nearby Galactic halo is dominated by the debris from a major accretion event. We confirm that result from an analysis of APOGEE-DR14 element abundances and Gaia-DR2 kinematics of halo stars. We show that ˜2/3 of nearby halo stars have high orbital eccentricities (e ≳ 0.8), and abundance patterns typical of massive

There is a correlation between the bulge mass of the three main galaxies of the Local Group (LG), i.e., M31, Milky Way (MW), and M33, and the number of their dwarf spheroidal galaxies. A similar correlation has also been reported for spiral galaxies with comparable luminosities outside the LG. These correlations do not appear to be expected in

We present a project to build a 4-m-diameter telescope (New Robotic Telescope [NRT]) with fully robotic operation. The telescope will be sited at the Observatory of Roque de los Muchachos in the island of La Palma (Spain). When it enters into operation in 5 years' time, it will be likely the largest robotic telescope in the world. This, in

Context. The Hubble Ultra Deep field (HUDF) is the deepest region ever observed with the Hubble Space Telescope. With the main objective of unveiling the nature of galaxies up to z ˜ 7 - 8, the observing and reduction strategy have focused on the properties of small and unresolved objects, rather than the outskirts of the largest objects, which are

We present CO (J = 1 → 0 3 → 2 5 → 4 10 → 9) and 1.2 kpc resolution [C II] line observations of the dusty star-forming galaxy (SFG) HXMM05—carried out with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array, the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy, the Plateau de Bure Interferometer, and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array

Context. The Gaia-ESO Public Spectroscopic Survey using FLAMES at the VLT has obtained high-resolution UVES spectra for a large number of giant stars, allowing a determination of the abundances of the key chemical elements carbon and nitrogen at their surface. The surface abundances of these chemical species are known to change in stars during