Gaia's Radial Velocity Spectrometer (RVS) has been operating in routine phase for over one year since initial commissioning. RVS continues to work well but the higher than expected levels of straylight reduce the limiting magnitude. The end-of-mission radial-velocity (RV) performance requirement for G2V stars was 15 km s−1 at V = 16.5 mag. Instead, 15 km s−1 precision is achieved at 15 < V < 16 mag, consistent with simulations that predict a loss of 1.4 mag. Simulations also suggest that changes to Gaia's onboard software could recover ~0.14 mag of this loss. Consequently Gaia's onboard software was upgraded in April 2015. The status of this new commissioning period is presented, as well as the latest scientific performance of the on-ground processing of RVS spectra. We illustrate the implications of the RVS limiting magnitude on Gaia's view of the Milky Way's halo in 6D using the Gaia Universe Model Snapshot (GUMS).

In order to better understand the chemical conditions and evolutionary properties of massive star-forming regions, and to explore the physical and chemical behavior of simple hydrocarbon molecules, we have used telescopes such as CSO, JCMT, CARMA and SMA, to map the multi-transitions of C2H and HC3N. The column densities and abundances are compared with chemical models to gain some diagnostic of the environment of the regions.

This brief overview stresses the importance of molecular processes in modern astrophysics and provides examples where the availability of new laboratory or theoretical data proved crucial in the analysis. This includes basic data such as spectroscopy and collisional rate coefficients, but also an improved understanding of reactions and photoprocesses in the gaseous and solid state. In spite of many lingering uncertainties, the future of molecular astrophysics is bright with new facilities such as ALMA, JWST and ELTs on the horizon. Together, they will allow increased understanding of the journey of gas and solids from clouds to stars and planets, and back to the interstellar medium.

We applied GALFIT and STARLIGHT to the r-band images and spectra, respectively, of ~1,100 dwarf galaxies to analyze the structural properties and stellar populations. In most cases, single component with n = 1 ~ 1.5 well describes the luminosity distribution of dwarf galaxies. However, a large fraction of dS0, dEbc, and dEblue galaxies show sub-structures such as spiral arms and rings. There is a bimodal distributions of stellar ages in dS0 galaxies. But other sub-types of dwarf galaxies show a single peak in the stellar distributions.

Twenty-six years after the explosion, we conducted a molecular line survey for supernova 1987A, using the ALMA observatory. The detection of molecules in the ejecta can uncover evidence of mixing and dynamics in the early days after the supernova explosion, as well as of molecular chemistry that took place in the last 25 years.

It is still not well understood to what extent the macroscopic mixing occurred after the supernova explosion. Molecules can provide a new tool to probe and test the extent of mixing: macroscopic mixings stir the elements from different layers of nuclear-reaction zones in the stellar core, opening the possibilities to form molecules that were composed of elements from different nuclear-burning zones, which the ALMA can detect. Additionally, the ALMA measured the line profiles of molecules, which unveiled the dynamics of ejecta. The high sensitivity observations of molecules can open a new window to determine SN explosion mechanisms and allow us to probe macroscopic mixing after the explosion.

We apply the Jeans Axisymmetric Multi-Gaussian Expansion method to the stellar kinematic maps of 40 Sa–Sd EDGE-CALIFA galaxies and derive their circular velocity curves (CVCs). The CVCs are classified using the Dynamical Classification method developed in Kalinova et al. (2015). We also calculate the observational baryon efficiency, OBE, where M*/Mb=M*/(M*+MHI+MH2) of the galaxies using their stellar mass, total neutral hydrogen mass and total molecular gas from CO luminosities. Slow-rising, Flat and Round-peaked CVC types correspond to specific OBEs, stellar and dark matter (DM) halo mass values, while the Sharp-peaked CVCs span in the whole DM halo mass range of 1011-1014M⊙.

We examine the infall pattern of subhaloes onto hosts in the context of the large-scale structure. We find that the infall pattern is essentially driven by the shear tensor of the ambient velocity field. Dark matter subhaloes are preferentially accreted along the principal axis of the shear tensor which corresponds to the direction of weakest collapse. We examine the dependence of this preferential infall on subhalo mass, host halo mass and redshift. Although strongest for the most massive hosts and the most massive subhaloes at high redshift, the preferential infall of subhaloes is effectively universal in the sense that its always aligned with the axis of weakest collapse of the velocity shear tensor. It is the same shear tensor that dictates the structure of the cosmic web and hence the shear field emerges as the key factor that governs the local anisotropic pattern of structure formation. Since the small (sub-Mpc) scale is strongly correlated with the mid-range (∼ 10 Mpc) scale - a scale accessible by current surveys of peculiar velocities - it follows that findings presented here open a new window into the relation between the observed large scale structure unveiled by current surveys of peculiar velocities and the preferential infall direction of the Local Group. This may shed light on the unexpected alignments of dwarf galaxies seen in the Local Group.

As an extreme kind of environment, Hickson Compact groups (HCGs) have shown to be very complex systems. HI-VLA observations revealed an intrincated network of HI tails and bridges, tracing pre-processing through extreme tidal interactions. We found HCGs to show a large HI deficiency supporting an evolutionary sequence where gas-rich groups transform via tidal interactions and ISM (interstellar medium) stripping into gas-poor systems. We detected as well a diffuse HI component in the groups, increasing with evolutionary phase, although with uncertain distribution. The complex net of detected HI as observed with the VLA seems hence so puzzling as the missing one. In this talk we revisit the existing VLA information on the HI distribution and kinematics of HCGs by means of X3D visualization. X3D constitutes a powerful tool to extract the most from HI data cubes and a mean of simplifying and easing the access to data visualization and publication via three-dimensional (3-D) diagrams.

We present photometry and spectroscopy of SN 2011kl associated to GRB 111209A. Peculiarities arise from both the ultra-long GRB and the very luminous SN, brighter than any other GRB-associated SN observed to date. We present unequivocal evidence in favor of a scenario where a newly-formed magnetar powers both the GRB and the SN.

We have observed on-going interacting galaxies (NGC4631 and NGC4656) using Subaru/Hyper Suprime-Cam and reduced the data using HSC pipeline and conducted photometry based on DAOphot. Then, we have detected 8 new dwarf galaxy candidates in the outer region of NGC4631 and confirmed the three candidates previously reported by Karachentsev et al. 2014. The 3 or 4 candidates detected in this study may be a star-forming dwarf irregular galaxy and the other 7 candidates may be an old dwarf spheroidal galaxy based on these stellar populations. It looks like that the effective radius - absolute magnitude relation of dwarf galaxies in NGC4631 group is similar to the relation of the Local Group and the other galaxy systems.

A robust feature of turbulent fragmentation theories is a universal Salpeter like slope (2.2 -2.4), for the mass spectrum of the fragments, at the high mass end. This is so due to the scale-free nature of turbulence and gravity. There are reports of top heavy / flatter Initial Mass Functions (IMF), inferred for many regions where we expect star formation to take place in gas clouds with comparatively higher gas density. Also, a higher Star Formation Efficiency (SFE) for regions of higher gas density has been proposed, to understand the formation of bound stellar systems in which dark matter is not a significant factor affecting the internal dynamics. In turbulent fragmentation models for star formation, we do not expect the mass of the stellar cluster to influence the maximum stellar mass directly and thereby imply a relation between the maximum stellar mass and the cluster mass. However, such a relation may be expected from statistical considerations. In this context, we explore the density dependence of the IMF, that would arise due to denser clouds producing more massive clusters due to the density dependence of the SFE.

Exploiting reflectron time of flight mass spectrometry coupled with single photon ionization of the subliming molecules (PI-ReTOF-MS) during the temperature programmed desorption (TPD) and combining these data with on line and in situ infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), a versatile experimental approach has been established to elucidate the formation pathways of complex organic molecules in interstellar analog ices upon interaction with ionizing radiation at astrophysically relevant temperatures as low as 5 K.

On the basis of the Hyper – Leda Catalogue HyperLeda 8293 galaxies with heliocentric radial velocities below 2500 km s-1 were selected; 4570 had known morphological types (4366 had calculated b/a ratio). We checked the frequency of the distribution of various types in the LSC, finding spirals and irregulars most numerous, in accordance with expectations. The axial ratio of galaxy diameters of various types was studied, and the dependence of this parameter on the morphological type was noted.

Understanding the distribution of gas in and around galaxies is vital for our interpretation of galaxy formation and evolution. As part of the Arecibo Galaxy Environment Survey (AGES) we have observed the neutral hydrogen (HI) gas in and around the nearby Local Group galaxy M33 to a greater depth than previous observations. As part of this project we investigated the absence of optically detected dwarf galaxies in its neighbourhood, which is contrary to predictions of galaxy formation models. We observed 22 discrete clouds, 11 of which were previously undetected and none of which have optically detected counterparts. We find one particularly interesting hydrogen cloud, which has many similar characteristics to hydrogen distributed in the disk of a galaxy. This cloud, if it is at the distance of M33, has a HI mass of around 107 M⊙ and a diameter of 18 kpc, making it larger in size than M33 itself.

We provide CNO and Fe abundance investigations for a sample of up to 45 NGC 1851 giants. High-resolution spectra were obtained with the VLT UVES spectrograph in the framework of the Gaia-ESO Survey. The stars in our sample can be separated into two groups with a difference of 0.1 dex in the mean metallicity, 0.3 dex in the mean C/N, and no significant difference in the mean values of C+N+O.

We study star formation occurring in nuclear rings of barred-spiral galaxies by using hydrodynamic simulations with the prescriptions of star formation and feedback included. In models without spiral arms, the star formation rate (SFR) in a ring exhibits a strong primary burst at early time and declines to small values at late time. The early burst is caused by a rapid gas infall due to the bar growth, consuming most of the gas inside the bar regions. On the other hand, models with spiral arms show multiple starburst activities at late time caused by arm-induced gas inflows, provided that the arm pattern speed is slower than that of the bar. The SFR in models with spirals is larger by a factor of ~ 1.4–4.0 than that in the bar-only models, with larger values corresponding to stronger and slower arms. In all models, young star clusters in nuclear ring show an azimuthal age gradient only when the SFR is small, such that younger clusters tend to locate closer to the contact points between the ring and dust lanes.

We re-evaluate the CO dipole moment function in order to obtain more accurate isotope ratios for the solar photosphere using previous infrared observations. We used a new set of dipole moments from HITEMP which were accurately determined by both semi-empirical and ab initio methods. Preliminary values of isotope ratios using the new dipole moments are in better agreement with the inferred photosphere values from Genesis, showing that the solar photosphere is isotopically similar to primitive inclusions in meteorites.

Athena is the second large mission selected in the ESA Cosmic Vision plan. With its large collecting area, high spectral-energy resolution (X-IFU instrument) and impressive grasp (WFI instrument), Athena will truly revolutionise X-ray astronomy. The most prodigious sources of high-energy photons are often transitory in nature. Athena will provide the sensitivity and spectral resolution coupled with rapid response to enable the study of the dynamic sky. Potential sources include: distant Gamma-Ray Bursts to probe the reionisation epoch and find missing baryons in the cosmic web; tidal disruption events to reveal dormant supermassive and intermediate-mass black holes; and supernova explosions to understand progenitors and their environments. We illustrate Athenas capabilities and show how it will be able to constrain the nature of explosive transients including gas metallicity and dynamics.

Several clues for understanding the nature and evolution of galaxies can be gained by studying galactic structures and their evolution with time and environment. However, even for nearby galaxies, detailed structural decomposition is not a straightforward task. Choosing the number of structural components and the limits placed on their parameters can have a large effect on the derived characteristics of galaxies. For distant galaxies, structural analysis is further hampered by the spatial resolution limits of the imaging. However, by using a relatively robust two-component bulge+disk modelling, galaxies in the nearby Universe can be compared to distant galaxies for tracing signs of evolution in the extracted structures. We start such a study by analysing first a well observed nearby sample of galaxies, using ∼600 targets from the CALIFA survey. We show that even in this small sample of nearby galaxies, the effects of environmental density are already well apparent.

Interstellar dust is still a dominant uncertainty in Astronomy, limiting precision in e.g., cosmological distance estimates and models of how light is re-processed within a galaxy. When a foreground galaxy serendipitously overlaps a more distant one, the latter backlights the dusty structures in the nearer foreground galaxy.

Such an overlapping or occulting galaxy pair can be used to measure the distribution of dust in the closest galaxy with great accuracy. The STARSMOG program uses Hubble to map the distribution of dust in foreground galaxies in fine (<100 pc) detail. Integral Field Unit (IFU) observations will map the effective extinction curve, disentangling the role of fine-scale geometry and grain composition on the path of light through a galaxy.

The overlapping galaxy technique promises to deliver a clear understanding of the dust in galaxies: geometry, a probability function of dimming as a function of galaxy mass and radius, and its dependence on wavelength.