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Galaxies can be described by features of their optical spectra such as oxygen emission lines, or morphological features such as spiral arms. Although spectroscopy provides a rich description of the physical processes that govern galaxy…
The final astrometric data from the Gaia mission will transform our view of the stellar content of the Galaxy, particularly when complemented with spectroscopic surveys providing stellar parameters, line-of-sight kinematics and elemental…
A general overview of the understanding of our Galaxy is presented following the lines of its main structures: halo, disc, bulge/bar. This review is emphasising some "Time Domain Astronomy" contributions. On the one hand the distance and…
Solar seismology has allowed precision measurements of both the static and dynamic structure of our local star, the Sun. In the near future, seismology of solar-like stars of different ages and masses, necessarily restricted by angular…
What else can be said about star formation rate indicators that has not been said already many times over? The `coming of age' of large ground-based surveys and the unprecedented sensitivity, angular resolution and/or field-of-view of…
This is a personal review of various issues related to massive photometric and astrometric searches. A complete inventory of variable stars down to almost any magnitude limit will improve our understanding of the stellar evolution and the…
Distant objects in the solar system are crucial to better understand the history and evolution of its outskirts. The stellar occultation technique allows the determination of their sizes and shapes with kilometric accuracy, a detailed…
The mass of a star is arguably its most fundamental parameter. For red giant stars, tracers luminous enough to be observed across the Galaxy, mass implies a stellar evolution age. It has proven to be extremely difficult to infer ages and…
Over the past three decades the established view of a nearly homogeneuous, featureless Universe on scales larger than a few Megaparsec has been completely overhauled. In particular through the advent of ever larger galaxy redshift surveys…
Stellar ages are critical for understanding the temporal evolution of a galaxy. We calculate the ages of over 6000 red giant branch stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) observed with SDSS-IV / APOGEE-S. Ages are derived using…
The WIde-field Nearby Galaxy clusters Survey (WINGS) is a project whose primary goal is to study the galaxy populations in clusters in the local universe (z<0.07) and of the influence of environment on their stellar populations. This survey…
The Milky Way has distinct structural stellar components linked to its formation and subsequent evolution, but disentangling them is nontrivial. With the recent availability of high-quality data for a large numbers of stars in the Milky…
We have constructed a family of simple models for spiral galaxy evolution to allow us to investigate observational trends in star formation history with galaxy parameters. The models are used to generate broad band colours from which ages…
Galactic bulges are central to understanding galaxy formation and evolution. Here we report on recent studies using micro-lensing events to obtain spectra of high resolution and moderately high signal-to-noise ratios of dwarf stars in the…
A detailed understanding of the physics of star and planet formation requires study of individual objects as well as statistical assessment of global properties and evolutionary trends. Observational investigations of circumstellar material…
Our understanding of how the Galaxy was formed and evolves is severely hampered by the lack of precise constraints on basic stellar properties such as distances, masses, and ages. Here, we show that solar-like pulsating red giants represent…
Pulsar wind nebulae are fascinating systems, and archetypal sources for high-energy astrophysics in general. Due to their vicinity, brightness, to the fact that they shine at multi-wavelengths, and especially to their long-living emission…
We address the question how accurately stellar ages can be determined by stellar evolution theory. We select the star with the best observational material available - our Sun. We determine the solar age by fitting solar evolution models to…
We review recent advances in our understanding of massive stars through the analysis of their spectra. Improvements in model atmospheres and analysis methods are briefly discussed. Results obtained for stars in the Local Group are compared…
A decade of X-ray stellar observations with Chandra and XMM-Newton has led to significant advances in our understanding of the physical processes at work in hot (magnetized) plasmas in stars and their immediate environment, providing new…