In 2011 Laporte et al. reported a very high redshift galaxy candidate: a lensed J-band dropout (A2667-J1). J1 has a photometric redshift of z= 9.6-12, the probability density function for which permits no low- or intermediate-z solution. We here report new spectroscopic observations of this galaxy with Very Large Telescope/X-Shooter, which show

All Galactic black hole binaries with low mass donor stars are transient X-ray sources; we expect most of the X-ray transients observed in external galaxies to be black hole binaries also. Obtaining period estimates for extra-galactic transients is challenging, but the resulting period distribution is an important tool for modeling the evolution

Although more than a thousand transiting extrasolar planets have been discovered, only very few of them orbit stars that are more massive than the Sun. The discovery of such planets is interesting, because they have formed in disks that are more massive but had a shorter life time than those of solar-like stars. Studies of planets more massive than

We present the analysis of the planetary microlensing event MOA-2011-BLG-291, which has a mass ratio of q = (3.8 ± 0.7) × 10‑4 and a source star that is redder (or brighter) than the bulge main sequence. This event is located at a low Galactic latitude in the survey area that is currently planned for NASA’s Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope

10199 Chariklo is the largest Centaur so far known. To investigate its surface composition and possible surface variations, spectroscopic observations have been carried out at the largest available telescopes. We obtained near-infrared spectra at ESO-VLT (Cerro Paranal, Chile) and TNG (La Palma, Spain) on April 2001 and March 2002, respectively

A periodic signal of high nominal significance (99.95 percent) is found in the light curve of OJ 287 in observations taken with the Prime Focus Camera Unit on the 2.5 m Isaac Newton Telescope on two nights in March-April 1987. No such periodicity is seen in the light curve of the simultaneously observed reference star. A null test involving