A prototype system for the Permanent All Sky Survey (PASS) project is presented. PASS is a continuous photometric survey of the entire celestial sphere with a high temporal resolution. Its major objectives are the detection of all giant-planet transits (with periods up to some weeks) across stars up to mag 10.5, and to deliver continuously

Young stellar bars in disk galaxies experience a vertical buckling instability that terminates their growth and thickens them, resulting in a characteristic peanut/boxy shape when viewed edge-on. Using N-body simulations of galactic disks embedded in live halos, we have analyzed the bar structure throughout this instability and found that the outer

Early-type galaxies are thought to be among the oldest known stellar systems, and as such have experienced the full diversity of evolutionary mechanisms at work in the universe. They are crucial laboratories for understanding how galaxies form and evolve from early epochs until the present day. A key aspect of unlocking their fossil evidence is by

We present time-resolved optical spectroscopy and photometry, and far-ultraviolet spectroscopy of HS 0728+6738, a cataclysmic variable discovered in the Hamburg Quasar Survey. We show that the system is a new eclipsing member of the SW Sex class of CVs with an orbital period of 3.21 h. We derive an orbital inclination of ˜ 85 ± 4° from the average

Swift is a first-of-its-kind multiwavelength transient observatory for GRB astronomy. It has the optimum capabilities for the next breakthroughs in determining the origin of GRBs and their afterglows, as well as using bursts to probe the early Universe. Swift will also perform the first sensitive hard X-ray survey of the sky. The mission is being

We propose a wide-area, high latitude, imaging survey to trace the evolution of dusty, star-forming galaxies, evolved stellar populations, and AGN, as a function of environment from z~2.5 to the current epoch. Building on ISO's heritage, SWIRE complements smaller, deeper GTO (Guaranteed Time Observer) surveys, and paves the way for FIRST. With MIPS