Search Publications
Sicily 2002 balloon campaign: a test of the HASI instrument
Fulchignoni, M.; Colombatti, G.; Ferri, F. +9 more
A mock-up of the probe descending in the Titan atmosphere as part of the Huygens Cassini Mission was successfully launched and recovered on 30th May 2002 after a stratospheric balloon launch from the Italian Space Agency Base "Luigi Broglio" in Trapani, Sicily. To simulate the Huygens mission at Titan, the probe was lifted to an altitude of 32 km …
Deep surveys of the obscured universe: GOODS
Chatzichristou, E. T.; Goods Team
Astronomy in the next decade will be dominated by multi-wavelength surveys which address a wide variety of scientific issues including galaxy formation and evolution, AGN structure and demographics and galactic structure. The great observatories origins deep survey (GOODS) is a deep multi-wavelength public survey of two of the deepest fields ever …
Sgr A East and its surroundings observed in X-rays
Decourchelle, A.; Warwick, R. S.; Sakano, M.
We report the results of an XMM-Newton observation of Sgr A East and its surroundings. The X-ray spectrum of Sgr A East is well represented with a two-temperature plasma model with temperatures of ∼1 and ∼4 keV. Only the iron abundance shows clear spatial variation; it concentrates in the core of Sgr A East. The derived plasma parameters suggest t…
HST and VLT observations of isolated neutron stars
Caraveo, P. A.; de Luca, A.; Mignani, R. P. +1 more
New results of optical observations of isolated pulsars and their environments are presented. Very Large Telescopes observations of PSR J0108-1431 set an upper limit of B~=28.6 on its optical flux, implying a neutron star surface temperature T<8.8×104 K (for d=200 pc, R∞=13 km). HST proper motion measurement of the PSR 192…
XMM-Newton study of soft excess X-ray emission in clusters of galaxies
Kaastra, J. S.; Tamura, T.; den Herder, J. W. +2 more
We discuss the detection of soft excess X-ray emission in a sample of 19 clusters of galaxies observed by XMM-Newton. In 6/19 clusters evidence for a soft X-ray excess is found. Four of these clusters show soft X-ray and O VII line emission from gas with a temperature of ∼0.2 keV. The centroid of this oxygen line is consistent with the redshift of…
Real time localization of gamma ray bursts with INTEGRAL
Götz, D.; Mereghetti, S.; Borkowski, J.
The INTEGRAL satellite has been successfully launched in October 2002 and has recently started its operational phase. The INTEGRAL burst alert system (IBAS) will distribute in real time the coordinates of the gamma ray bursts (GRBs) detected with INTEGRAL. After a brief introduction on the INTEGRAL instruments, we describe the main IBAS characteri…
Suprathermal ions of solar and interstellar origin associated with the April 9-12, 2001, CMEs
Klecker, B.; Wimmer-Schweingruber, R. F.; Hilchenbach, M. +2 more
The distribution functions of suprathermal ions associated with the two interplanetary coronal mass ejections in the time period of April 9-12, 2001, are analyzed. The data on ions in the energy range 35-2000 keV/amu were recorded by the (Highly) Suprathermal Time-of-Flight (HSTOF/STOF) Spectrometer on board the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory …
ISO: highlights of recent results
Salama, A.
The Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) was the world's first true orbiting infrared observatory. Equipped with four versatile scientific instruments, it was launched by an Ariane 44P in November 1995 and provided astronomers world-wide with a facility of unprecedented sensitivity and capabilities for a detailed exploration of the universe at infrare…
Highlights from HST/NICMOS
Schneider, G.
The near-infrared camera and multi-object spectrometer (NICMOS) was installed in the Hubble Space Telescope in February 1997. After 22 months of operation the 110 kg supply of solid N 2, which cooled the NICMOS-3 HgCdTe detectors, was exhausted. The cryostat warmed up leaving the instrument in an electromechanically functional, but scie…
The optical to X-ray spectrum of the broad-line ultrasoft AGN RE J2248-511
Mason, K. O.; Starling, R. L. C.; Romero-Colmenero, E. +1 more
We present a series of monitoring observations of the ultrasoft broad-line Seyfert galaxy RE J2248-511 with XMM-Newton. Previous X-ray observations showed a transition from a very soft state to a harder state five years later. We find that the ultrasoft X-ray excess has re-emerged, yet there is no change in the hard power-law. Reflection models wi…