From observations of almost 500 red giant branch stars in 29 Galactic open and globular clusters, we have investigated the behavior of the infrared Ca II triplet (8498, 8542, and 8662 Å) in the age range 13 Gyr

The emergence of magnetic flux from the convection zone into the corona is an important process for the dynamical evolution of the coronal magnetic field. In this paper we extend our previous numerical investigations, by looking at the process of flux interaction as an initially twisted flux tube emerges into a plane-parallel, coronal magnetic

CODEX, a high resolution, super-stable spectrograph to be fed by the E-ELT, the most powerful telescope ever conceived, will for the first time provide the possibility of directly measuring the change of the expansion rate of the Universe with time and much more, from the variability of fundamental constants to the search for other earths. A study

As part of the ACS Survey of Galactic Globular Clusters, we present new Hubble Space Telescope photometry of the massive globular cluster M54 (NGC 6715) and the superposed core of the tidally disrupted Sagittarius (Sgr) dSph galaxy. Our deep (F606W ~ 26.5), high-precision photometry yields an unprecedentedly detailed color-magnitude diagram showing

Aims:A-type asteroid (1951) Lick has a very red visible and near-infrared reflectance spectrum, and it is one of the reddest Near-Earth objects. Its surface is probably affected by heavy space weathering processes. Here we investigate the possibility of a weathering saturation regime. Methods: We compare Lick's spectrum with those of silicate

We present a preliminary analysis of ASTRO-F data of a complete sample of ~150 EROs (R-K>5) down to K(Vega)