Related papers: Interstellar Objects Outnumber Solar System Object…
The carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen abundances and trends in the bulge are discussed in the context of our recent analysis of these elements in an on-going project based on near-IR spectra (Ryde et al. 2009). We obtained these using the CRIRES…
Old neutron stars (ONSs) which have radiated away their internal and rotational energy may still shine if accreting the interstellar medium. Despite their large number, only two promising candidates have been detected so far and rather…
Using infrared photometric data extracted from the 2MASS, IRAS and MSX databases, 142 suspected young stellar objects (YSOs) are selected from about 2 million stars in the Camelopardalis segment of the Milky Way limited by Galactic…
The three dimensional structure of the brightest part of the Orion Nebula is assessed in the light of published and new data. We find that the widely accepted model of a concave blister of ionized material needs to be altered in the…
The Complex of Local Interstellar Clouds (CLIC) is a relatively tight grouping of low density, warm, partially ionized clouds within about 15 pc of the Solar System. The Local Interstellar Cloud (LIC) is the cloud observed on most lines of…
The most recent observational evidence seems to indicate that giant molecular clouds are predominantly gravitationally unbound objects. In this paper we show that this is a natural consequence of a scenario in which cloud-cloud collisions…
Exocomets are small bodies releasing gas and dust which orbit stars other than the Sun. Their existence was first inferred from the detection of variable absorption features in stellar spectra in the late 1980s using spectroscopy. More…
Over the course of the past two decades, observational surveys have unveiled the intricate orbital structure of the Kuiper Belt, a field of icy bodies orbiting the Sun beyond Neptune. In addition to a host of readily-predictable orbital…
We use new Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) and archival Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph (GHRS) observations to study interstellar B II 1362 and O I 1355 absorption along seven sightlines. Our new column density…
The discrepancy between abundances computed using optical recombination lines (ORLs) and collisionally excited lines (CELs) is a major unresolved problem in nebular astrophysics. We show here that the largest abundance discrepancies are…
The realization that primordial black holes (PBHs) might be some fraction of the dark matter begged the question, how often do PBHs enter the solar system? For a Neptune radius solar system the answer is, rarely. For an Oort cloud sized…
Observations of ionised carbon at 158 micron ([CII]) from luminous star-forming galaxies at z~0 show that their ratios of [CII] to far infrared (FIR) luminosity are systematically lower than those of more modestly star-forming galaxies. In…
Interstellar clouds form the cosmic "ecosystem" through which the Sun moves. Understanding the physical properties of nearby interstellar material, in sufficient detail to evaluate historical variations in the solar galactic environment,…
Black holes and neutron stars present extreme forms of matter that cannot be created as such in a laboratory on Earth. Instead, we have to observe and analyze the experiments that are ongoing in the Universe. The most telling observations…
We discuss a possible method for detection of dark companions of galactic objects of stellar mass. Such binary systems are likely to occur in the galactic disk and possibly also in the halo. The high incidence of binary and…
The interior structure of the Sun can be studied with great accuracy using observations of its oscillations, similar to seismology of the Earth. Precise agreement between helioseismological measurements and predictions of theoretical solar…
Interstellar comets offer direct samples of volatiles from distant protoplanetary disks. 2I/Borisov is the first notably active interstellar comet discovered in our solar system[1]. Comets are condensed samples of the gas, ice, and dust…
Small distortions in the images of Einstein rings or giant arcs offer the exciting prospect of detecting dark matter haloes or subhaloes of mass below $10^9$M$_{\odot}$, most of which are too small to have made a visible galaxy. A very…
Most stellar remnants so far have been found in binary systems, where they interact with matter from their companions. Isolated neutron stars and black holes are difficult to find as they are dark, yet they are predicted to exist in our…
The interstellar cloud surrounding the solar system regulates the galactic environment of the Sun and constrains the physical characteristics of the interplanetary medium. This paper compares interstellar dust grain properties observed…