We have confirmed the detection of a surprising, and so far unique, absorption feature on a main-belt asteroid, 24 Themis. Our 2 to 4 micron reflectance spectra were obtained over 7 hours (84% of Themis’ rotational period) on January 23, 2008 UT, from NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility. All our spectra confirm the shape and depth of the 3.1 micron

Constellation-X will obtain for the first time high quality X-ray spectra for all classes of X-ray sources, over a wide range of luminosity and distance. It is the second priority in the National Academy of Sciences Decadal survey in the major space based missions category (after JWST). Over the past few years, NASA budgets for SMD have been

Spontaneous breaking of Lorentz symmetry at energies on the order of the Planck energy or lower is predicted by many quantum gravity theories, implying non-trivial dispersion relations for the photon in vacuum. Consequently, gamma-rays of different energies, emitted simultaneously from astrophysical sources, could accumulate measurable differences

The CMB temperature-redshift relation, TCMB(z)=T0(1+z), is a key prediction of the standard cosmology but is violated in many non-standard models. Constraining possible deviations from this law is an effective way to test the ΛCDM paradigm and to search for hints of new physics. We have determined TCMB(z), with a precision up to 3%, for a subsample

We report our analysis of the stability of pulsation periods in the DAV star (pulsating hydrogen atmosphere white dwarf) ZZ Ceti, also called R548. On the basis of observations that span 31 years, we conclude that the period 213.13 s observed in ZZ Ceti drifts at a rate dP/dt=1.2 Gyr, comparable to the theoretical cooling timescale for the star

Aims: More than 30 years after its discovery, the thick disc of the Milky Way is not fully explored. We examine the shape of the thick disc in order to gain insight into the process of its formation. Methods: The shape of the thick disc is studied in detail using photometric data at high and intermediate latitudes from SDSS and 2MASS surveys. We