At the end of their evolution, stars with a final mass larger than 8 solar masses (“final mass” because massive stars lose a large fraction of their mass as stellar winds during their evolution) explode as Core-Collapse Supernovae, e.g. triggered by the collapse of their nucleus. Two objects are produced by such explosions: the supernova remnant formed by the ejected
The final architecture of a planetary system is the result of a complex interplay between several processes, such as the dispersion of the protoplanetary disk from which the planetary system formed, and the gravitational interaction between the newborn planets. Besides, these processes can be affected by the environment and by their central star. One of the most important process dictating
Pre-Main Sequence stars are young (few million years) stars whose nuclei are not powered yet by the thermonuclear reactions, and that may still accrete gas from a surrounding disk (called protoplanetary or accretion disks). Even if the accretion disks are typically extended more than 100 Astronomical Units (AU, the mean distance between Earth and the Sun, equal to 150 million
Despite its importance for our comprehension of stellar and galactic evolution, stellar age is one of the most elusive stellar properties. In fact, we are able to determine stellar age with a good precision only in a few cases. Typical methods to determine this quantity are: the study of the chemical abundance of Lithium, stellar kinematics, stellar pulsations analyzed by
The Solar corona is visible in the energetic bands of the electromagnetic spectrum as composed by magnetic arcs filled by plasma at million degrees, which are particularly bright in the active regions. Despite it is clear that the magnetic field plays a fundamental role in heating and confining the plasma, the Solar corona is still a complex region where energetic
Pre-Main Sequence stars are young stars whose cores are not dense and hot enough to ignite the thermonuclear reactions that will power them for the rest of their evolution. These stars are sorted in three classes: the youngest stars are the class I sources, still embedded in an accreting envelope of gas; class II stars have dispersed their accreting envelope
The panel for the evaluation of the proposals for observations with the NASA telescope Chandra, which met up in Boston at the end of June, has approved the Large Project: “Star formation in starburst: a deep ACIS-I observation of Westerlund 1“, based on a Chandra observation longer than 277 hours. The project, led by the astronomer Mario Giuseppe Guarcello (INAF
Stellar magnetic activity results from the interaction between stellar magnetic field and the plasma in photosphere, chromosphere, and corona. This activity produces well known phenomena, such as flares, spots, faculae, and prominences, observed in stars of almost every type and mass. This activity is typically studied by analyzing spectroscopic activity indicators produced by these phenomena, such as the H and
In the last years, several organic molecules, some of which of prebiotic interest, have been observed in different astronomical environments. For instance, Acetonitrile CH3CN was detected in the molecular cloud Sag B2 and in the protostar MWC480; formamide (a building block for sugars and amino-acids) was detected in some outer galaxies and in the protostar SVS13-A (in this case together
The inner disk of the Milky Way is the region of the disk of our Galaxy within about 26000 light years from its center. This region is of particular interest, since it lies between the bulge and the outer disk of the Milky Way. However, a few studies of the stellar clusters in the inner disk exist to date, despite
