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White dwarf stars are the most common endpoint of stellar evolution. Therefore, these old, numerous and compact objects provide valuable information on the late stages of stellar evolution, the physics of dense plasma and the structure and…
We test whether we can predict optical spectra from deep-field photometry of distant galaxies. Our goal is to perform a comparison in data space, highlighting the differences between predicted and observed spectra. The Large Early Galaxy…
Abundance ratios of radioactive to stable neutron-capture elements in very metal-poor stars may be used to estimate the age of our Galaxy. But extracting accurate ages from these data requires continuing work on many fronts: a)…
In this short survey of the applications of wide-field, multi-object spectroscopy to galaxy evolution, large-scale structure and cosmology, I interleave summaries of the general goals and state of play in these fields with specific examples…
The Gaia mission has observed over 2 billion stars repeatedly across the entire sky over 10 years, revealing the many astronomical objects that vary on human timescales from seconds to years. Its repeated astrometric, photometric,…
Elliptical galaxies are believed to consist of a single population of old stars formed together at an early epoch in the Universe, yet recent analyses of galaxy spectra seem to indicate the presence of significant younger populations of…
The next decade of survey astronomy has the potential to transform our knowledge of variable stars. Stellar variability underpins our knowledge of the cosmological distance ladder, and provides direct tests of stellar formation and…
Within the Local Universe galaxies can be studied in great detail star by star, and here we review the results of quantitative studies in nearby dwarf galaxies. The Color-Magnitude Diagram synthesis method is well established as the most…
Recently the search for the oldest stars have started to focus on the Bulge region. The Galactic bulge hosts extremely old stars, with ages compatible with the ages of the oldest halo stars. The data coming from these recent observations…
We describe observations in the nearby universe (<100 Mpc) with a 10-m or larger space-based telescope having imaging and spectral capabilities in the range 912-9000 \AA that would enable advances in the fields of massive stars, young…
Over the last decade Galactic planetary nebula discoveries have entered a golden age due to the emergence of high sensitivity, high resolution narrow-band surveys of the Galactic plane. These have been coupled with access to complimentary,…
The second data release of ESA's Gaia satellite (Gaia DR2) revolutionised astronomy by providing accurate distances, proper motions, apparent magnitudes, and in many cases temperatures and radial velocities for an unprecedented number of…
In spite of great progress over the last $\sim 10$ years, especially thanks to HST, a number of exciting open problem still puzzle astronomers working on globular clusters in our own and other galaxies. These problems range from determining…
Galactic archaeology relies on accurate stellar parameters to reconstruct the galaxy's history, including information on stellar ages. While the precision of data has improved significantly in recent years, stellar models used for age…
Astronomical transients, such as supernovae and other rare stellar explosions, have been instrumental in some of the most significant discoveries in astronomy. New astronomical sky surveys will soon record unprecedented numbers of…
We present a spectral decomposition technique and its applications to a sample of galaxies hosting large-scale counter-rotating stellar disks. Our spectral decomposition technique allows to separate and measure the kinematics and the…
Galaxy formation and evolution is one of the most active areas of research in astronomy. In recent times there have been several developments on the observational fronts particularly with the discovery of several relations between galaxy…
Galaxies form and evolve in the context of their local and large-scale environments. Their baryonic content that we observe with imaging and spectroscopy is intimately connected to the properties of their dark matter halos, and to their…
The main goal of Galactic Archaeology is understanding the formation and evolution of the basic Galactic components. This requires sophisticated chemo-dynamical modeling, where disc asymmetries (e.g., perturbations from the central bar,…
The ESA Gaia mission has revolutionized our understanding of the white dwarf population, delivering an unprecedented census of these nearby remnants and revealing previously unseen structures in the Hertzsprung-Russell (HR) diagram.…