Paco Najarro and Miriam García are having a 4 night long observing run at the TNG. They will obtain high resolution spectra of blue massive stars with GIANO. Fingers crossed for good weather!
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CAB-Masivas at Telescopio Nazionale Galileo
H-band spectrum of a Milky Way LBV-candidate, featuring a PCygni profile at HeI 1.70 microns [telluric-correction pending]. The impressive 3.58m TNG primary mirror. Sunset from the TNG dome. -
Marta Lorenzo successfully defends her Master thesis.
On June 27th, 2019 Marta presented her Master dissertation at UCM. The thesis was entitled “Más allá de la Pequeña Nube de Magallanes. Estrellas masivas pobres en metales y su relación con la galaxia anfitriona”, and used our observations of Sextans A to study the Initial Mass Function at different sites of the galaxy. She was awarded Matrícula de Honor; congratulations, Marta!
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We welcome Amparo Marco and Ignacio Negueruela from Universidad de Alicante.
Our GEEMAS colleagues Amparo Marco e Ignacio Negueruela visited CAB-masivas in June 2019. During their visit we progressed on EMIR data-reduction and common projects on B-hypergiants and massive X-ray binaries.
Massive star people and Don Quixote:
“They are no wind-mills but hypergiants!!”. -
Ionized soccer balls in space!
Image credit: NASA/JPL An international team including Paco Najarro has confirmed, for the first time, the presence of large molecules that resemble tiny soccer balls in the interstellar medium. High signal-to-noise HST-STIS spectra taken towards different lines of sight, all backlit by massive stars, have detected the weak predicted DIBs caused by the ionized C60 Buckmisnterfullerene.
Check on NASA’s press release here. The main journal paper is available here.
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The youngest massive stars of Sextans-A dwell in the outskirts.
Sexants-A image taken in the V-band (from the Local Group survey), with the map of neutral hydrogen overlaid (from LITTLE THINGS). Orange squares mark the location of OB-type stars. The CAB+IAC team lead by Miriam Garcia is drilling Sextans-A in pursuit of the population of massive stars. Our latest result is striking: we found the youngest, most massive stars known to date in the very outskirts of the galaxy!
Check out CAB’s press release here.