Using N-body simulations, we study the origin of prolate rotation observed in the kinematic data for Andromeda II (And II), a dwarf spheroidal satellite of M31. We propose an evolutionary model for the origin of And II involving a merger between two discy dwarf galaxies with different disc scalelengths. The dwarfs are placed on a radial orbit

The CoRoT and Kepler space missions have commenced a golden era in the field of asteroseismology. The precise and long-term uninterrupted photometric time series from space, now available for thousands of stars, enable the detection of low-amplitude frequencies, revealing new and surprising pulsational results. From the following overview of the

We present Chandra, XMM-Newton, and Swift observations of the quiescent neutron star in the transient low-mass X-ray binary MAXI J0556-332. Observations of the source made during outburst (with the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer) reveal tracks in its X-ray color-color and hardness-intensity diagrams that closely resemble those of the neutron-star Z

We present Herschel far-IR photometry and spectroscopy as well as ground-based CO observations of an intermediate redshift (0.21 1 is already significant by z ~ 0.3.

The topic of this thesis is the study of the morphology, kinematics and star formation of nearby galaxies, aiming to clarify a number of long-standing open questions about their formation, evolution and physical properties. First, I have addressed the star formation and its distribution across the Hubble sequence of galaxies. In particular, I have

The heart of this thesis is the study of the multifrequency behaviour of a very special family of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) called blazars. The emission of these sources is generally dominated by non-thermal radiation from a plasma jet, making them the best candidates to investigate the properties of jets in AGNs. We present an analysis of the