In the last decade, it has become clear that the dust-enshrouded star formation contributes significantly to early galaxy evolution. Detection of dust is therefore essential in determining the properties of galaxies in the high-redshift universe. This requires observations at the (sub-)millimeter wavelengths. Unfortunately, sensitivity and background confusion of single dish observations on the one hand, and mapping efficiency of interferometers on the other hand, pose unique challenges to observers. One promising route to overcome these difficulties is intensity mapping of fluctuations which exploits the confusion-limited regime and measures the collective light emission from all sources, including unresolved faint galaxies. We discuss in this contribution how 2D and 3D intensity mapping can measure the dusty star formation at high redshift, through the Cosmic Infrared Background (2D) and [CII] fine structure transition (3D) anisotropies.

We present an overview of our work on shape and spin state determination of asteroids from photometric data sparse in time. Our results are based on simulations that were performed using realistic shape and light-scattering models and time sequences that will be provided by Pan-STARRS (Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System). We show some typical examples of physical model reconstruction of main belt and near-Earth asteroids and discuss the lightcurve inversion of slow and fast rotators, binary asteroids and tumbling asteroids. We emphasize the scientific potential of sparse photometric data to produce models of a large number of asteroids within the next few years.

The orbital motion of comets is difficult to characterize accurately due to the rocket-like outgassing of material from the cometary nucleus. The resulting nongravitational accelerations often appear to be fundamentally stochastic in nature and thus pose severe modeling challenges in orbit determination, especially when the comet has been observed for many revolutions. Even so, new techniques have arisen in recent years that give new insight, not only into the motion of the comets, but also into their physical characteristics and spin states. These approaches include modeling of spin axis precession over many decades and the consideration of the seasonal variation in the thrust from discrete jets acting on a rotating nucleus. Such advances have been enabled, in part, by the increasing efforts and capabilities of comet observers worldwide as more and more comets with longer and longer observing arcs become available for study. In this review we specifically consider the application of the Rotating Jet Model to several space mission targets, indicating how this model can often be used to infer the orientation of a comet's spin axis.To search for other articles by the author(s) go to: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html

Three architectural traditions with astronomical associations have been identified among the ‘Great Houses’ and ‘Great Kivas’ of Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. Great Houses and one Great Kiva built during the height of construction activity (AD 1020–1100), the Bonito Phase, include front-facing south-southeast (SSE) orientations, and cardinal north-south and/or east-west (NS/EW) alignments. We present ethnographic material supporting our previous proposal that the SSE orientation is probably linked to migration traditions and ancestor veneration. We also confirm that a majority of Late Bonito Phase Great Houses (built after A.D. 1100) exhibit a third astronomical tradition: five of the principal in-canyon Great Houses built at that time were positioned at or near observing locations that could have functioned as solstice calendrical stations. Through use of these locations for public ceremonies, the Chacoan elite could demonstrate astronomical knowledge and ritual power. These findings provide support for Van Dyke's hypothesis that construction during this period was intended to reinvigorate a faltering system. One ‘Chaco halo’ Great House, Bis sa'ani, incorporates all three traditions. We suggest that temporal analysis of these traditions improves understanding of migration paths and shifting balances of power and social dominance among ancestral Pueblo culture groups.

High resolution N-body simulations show that the density profiles of dark matter halos formed in the standard CDM cosmogony can be fit accurately by scaling a simple “universal” profile. Regardless of their mass, halos are nearly isothermal over a large range in radius, but significantly shallower than r–2 near the center and steeper than r–2 in the outer regions. The characteristic overdensity of a halo correlates strongly with halo mass in a manner consistent with the mass dependence of the epoch of halo formation. Matching the shape of the rotation curves of disk galaxies with this halo structure requires (i) disk mass-to-light ratios to increase systematically with luminosity, (ii) halo circular velocities to be systematically lower than the disk rotation speed, and (iii) that the masses of halos surrounding bright galaxies depend only weakly on galaxy luminosity. This offers an attractive explanation for the puzzling lack of correlation between luminosity and dynamics in observed samples of binary galaxies and of satellite companions of bright spiral galaxies, suggesting that the structure of dark matter halos surrounding bright spirals is similar to that of cold dark matter halos.

The basic characteristics of the stellar populations in galaxies are determined by the history of star formation and by the initial mass spectrum with which the stars are formed. Many attempts have been made to model the history of star formation in galaxies using various quasi-theoretical descriptions of star formation, but star formation remains a very poorly understood process and no theoretical understanding with any real predictive power has yet been attained. However, recent work suggests the importance for star formation of some mechanisms that have so far not been very extensively studied, and I shall mention some of these possible processes here, undeveloped though these ideas still are at present.

First, I shall review briefly the observational evidence concerning the history of star formation in galaxies of different Hubble type. Most of the information we have for galaxies other than our own comes from their colors, which can be compared with the predictions of models constructed with various assumed histories of star formation. Ever since the work of Tinsley (1968), it has been clear that most of the observed variation of color with Hubble type can be understood in terms of differing time scales for star formation, the reddest galaxies (E and SO) having formed the bulk of their stars at a relatively early stage, while the much bluer Sc galaxies have formed their stars much more gradually and at a rate that has remained nearly constant up to the present time. Recent studies of normal elliptical galaxies, reviewed by Faber in this volume, confirm that they have no detectable present star formation.

We are conducting a survey of several regions of high-mass star formation to assess their content and structure. The observations include spitzer observations, ground-based optical and near-IR imaging surveys, and optical and IR spectra of objects and locations in the molecular clouds. The goal of the survey is to gain a better understanding of the processes involved in high mass star formation by determining the characteristics of the stars detected in these regions and investigating the properties of the interstellar medium (ISM) environment in which these stars form. In this contribution, we present results on the identification and spatial analysis of young stars in three clusters, W5/AFGL 4029, S255, and S235. First we show how the IRAC data are used to roughly segregate young stars according to their mid-infrared colors, into two groups corresponding the SED class I and class II young stellar objects. Then using the IRAC data in combination with 2MASS, we show how more young stars can be identified. Finally, we examine the spatial distributions of young stars in these clusters and find a range of morphologies and of peak surface densities.

Machine learning techniques have proven to be increasingly useful in astronomical applications over the last few years, for example in object classification, estimating redshifts and data mining. One example of object classification is classifying galaxy morphology. This is a tedious task to do manually, especially as the datasets become larger with surveys that have a broader and deeper search-space. The Kaggle Galaxy Zoo competition presented the challenge of writing an algorithm to find the probability that a galaxy belongs in a particular class, based on SDSS optical spectroscopy data. The use of convolutional neural networks (convnets), proved to be a popular solution to the problem, as they have also produced unprecedented classification accuracies in other image databases such as the database of handwritten digits (MNIST †) and large database of images (CIFAR ‡). We experiment with the convnets that comprised the winning solution, but using broad classifications. The effect of changing the number of layers is explored, as well as using a different activation function, to help in developing an intuition of how the networks function and to see how they can be applied to radio galaxy images.

Probing the atmospheres of Be stars by means of Optical Long Baseline Interferometry (OLBI) is a method still in its infancy. Published observational results in this field can be counted on one hand. In this paper we introduce the principles of OLBI as they apply to observations of Be stars and review results from existing long baseline interferometers. Regular operation of OLBI is most effective when carried out in conjunction with standard techniques such as photometry and spectroscopy. With the next generation of synthetic arrays combining sub-milliarcsecond resolution and a spectral resolution better than 10000, OLBI should be able to address the direct detection of pulsation and magnetic fields.

The combination of Pioneer photometric and Voyager spectrometric observations of EUV interstellar-interplanetary emissions in the region beyond 5 AU have been applied to a determination of atomic hydrogen and helium densities. These density estimates obtained from direct measurement of scattered radiation depend on absolute calibration of the instruments, in the same way as other earlier determinations based on the same method. However, we have combined the spacecraft data with daily full sun averages of the H Lya 1216 A line obtained by the Solar Mesospheric Explorer (SME) satellite, to obtain a measure of atomic hydrogen density independent of instrument absolute calibration. The method depends on observations of long and short term temporal variability of the solar line over a 1 year period, and the fact that the ISM is optically thick. The density estimates from preliminary work on these observations are [H] = 0,12 cm-3 and [He] = .016 cm-3, giving a density ratio close to the cosmic abundance value, in contrast to some earlier results indicating a depletion of atomin hydrogen. We have obtained estimates of galactic background emissions in the signals of both spacecraft.

The He I 10830 Å triplet gives a unique view of the solar chromosphere. Digital spectroheliograms have been made regularly since early 1974 using this line and the NSO Vacuum Telescope on Kitt Peak. For many purposes (detection of coronal holes, giant two-ribbon flares, and dark point events) these images are sufficient. A Sun-as-a-star signal is also produced by averaging all the pixels in each daily image. To calibrate this ‘irradiance’ signal in terms of line equivalent width, a comparison is made with integrated sunlight spectrophotometric measurements obtained less frequently. After correction for the effects of water vapor blends, we find a linear relation between the two measurements. The daily averages have been assembled into a time series covering nearly two solar cycles. This time series shows cycle modulation of about ±30% and rotational modulation of about ±10%. The general variation is similar to that of other activity indices but with some interesting small differences. Since images are available, it has been possible to decompose the full disk index into components due to plages, filaments, coronal holes and background. At all times during the cycle, most of the signal comes from the background but most of the variability from plages.

Milky Way dwarf companions and satellites of distant spirals seem to show a preference for polar orbits. We suggest that five out of six M31 dwarf spheroidal companions as well as two dwarf irregulars may also be located near a polar plane.

We briefly discuss preliminary results from a statistical approach to study correlations between star formation histories and orbits of Local Group dwarf galaxies, such as a possible correlation between star formation episodes and galaxy separations.

We have acquired about 1200 hr of both spectroscopic and photometric measurements of the β Cep star ν Eri with 22 telescopes around the world, detecting and identifying seven independent pulsation modes. They are the radial fundamental mode, an l = 1, g1 triplet, an l = 1, p1 doublet and an l = 1, p2 singlet. Seismic model calculations by two independent teams suggest that it is not possible to explain the pulsational behaviour of ν Eri with standard stellar models. Some modifications of the input physics are required.

We present first results of a new heterodyne spectrometer dedicated to high-resolution spectroscopy of molecules of astrophysical importance. The spectrometer, based on a room-temperature heterodyne receiver, is sensitive to frequencies between 75 and 110 GHz with an instantaneous bandwidth of currently 2.5 GHz in a single sideband. The system performance, in particular the sensitivity and stability, is evaluated. Proof of concept of this spectrometer is demonstrated by recording the emission spectrum of methyl cyanide, CH3CN. Compared to state-of-the-art radio telescope receivers the instrument is less sensitive by about one order of magnitude. Nevertheless, the capability for absolute intensity measurements can be exploited in various experiments, in particular for the interpretation of the ever richer spectra in the ALMA era. The ease of operation at room-temperature allows for long time integration, the fast response time for integration in chirped pulse instruments or for recording time dependent signals. Future prospects as well as limitations of the receiver for the spectroscopy of complex organic molecules (COMs) are discussed.

Attempts to explain both the expansion of the universe and the condensation of galaxies must be very largely contradictory so long as gravitation is the only force field under consideration. For if the expansive kinetic energy of matter is adequate to give universal expansion against the gravitational field it is adequate to prevent local condensation under gravity, and vice versa. This is why, essentially, the formation of galaxies is passed over with little comment in most systems of cosmology. Yet the galaxies, and the clusters in which they are often found, are such an important characteristic property of the universe that it is unsatisfactory to dismiss their origin in the vague term “fluctuation phenomenon.”

28 Cygni was observed during two seasons spectroscopically. The radial velocities of more than 15 spectral lines were measured and searched for periodic variability. Two closely spaced periods were found. A two-dimensional analysis of the line profile variability yielded the same periods and provided the power and phase distribution across the line profiles. An outburst covered by our data coincides with the time of constructive interference of both periods. 28 Cyg is the second case for which outbursts seem to be triggered by multi-mode beating.

We propose a new mechanism of crystallization of cometary silicate. The crystallization is due to heat released by chemical reactions in the organic refractory mantle of Greenberg’s model of cometary dust induced by moderate heating by solar radiation. It is shown that the strength of the crystalline feature observed in the comets can be reproduced by the present mechanism of crystallization.

The correlation between the effective radius re and surface brightness μe for elliptical galaxies is a fundamental scaling law that theories of galaxy formation must explain. When re and μe are derived by fitting two-parameter fitting functions such as the de Vaucouleurs r1/4 law to brightness profiles, the errors in the parameters are strongly coupled. The purpose of this paper is to rederive the μe(log re) relations for ellipticals and bulges, taking account of the coupling in the errors and using only high-accuracy CCD data. Our preliminary conclusions are: (1) The coupled errors are too small to affect significantly the correlation derived for elliptical galaxies. (2) The correlation for bulges is not very different from that for ellipticals, but the galaxy sample is small and the errors in the parameters are large due to the inherent uncertainty in bulge-disk decomposition.

In the present study a time series analysis of three of the most well-known Sun activity data series is made: 1) the Hoyt-Schatten (Group Sunspot Number $\mbox{\textit{Rg}}$)(Hoyt & Schatten 1988); 2) the Schove and 3) the Greenland (Dye-3 ice probe) ‘cosmogenic’ $^{10}Be$ concentration series (Schove 1983, Beer et al. 1998). The series “1” is based on instrumental observations for the last $\sim$400 years. The series “2” is a reconstruction of all Schwabe-Wolf cycle magnitudes after AD 296 by use of historical reports mainly for auroras and naked-eye visible sunspots. The series “3” is an indicator for the processes in outer solar corona and interplanetary space for the epoch AD 1423–1985. Two independent methods for time series analysis are used: 1) the $T$-$R$ periodogramm analysis (Komitov, 1986); 2) the method of Kaftan (2002).To search for other articles by the author(s) go to: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html