Close-in extrasolar giant planets may be directly detectable by their reflected light, due to the proximity of the planet to the illuminating star. The spectrum of the system will contain a reflected light component that varies in amplitude and Doppler shift as the planet orbits the star. Intensive searches for this effect have been carried out for only one extrasolar planet system, τ Boö. Ther...

Giant radio pulses of the millisecond pulsar B1937+21 were recorded with the S2 VLBI system at 1.65 GHz with NASA/JPL’s 70-m radio telescope at Tidbinbilla, Australia. These pulses have been observed as strong as 65 000 Jy with widths ≤ 15 ns, corresponding to a brightness temperature Tb ≥ 5 · 10 39 K, the highest observed in the universe. The vast majority of these pulses occur in a 5.8 μs and...

We have included opacity tables in our stellar evolution code that enable us to accurately model the structure of stars composed of mixtures with carbon and oxygen independently enhanced relative to solar. We present tests to demonstrate the effects of the new tables. Two of these are practical examples, the effect on the evolution of a thermally pulsing asymptotic giant branch star and a Wolf-...

Using adaptive optics at the Gemini North telescope we have obtained a K-band spectrum of the star near the center of the luminous Galactic center bowshock IRS 8, as well as a spectrum of the bowshock itself. The stellar spectrum contains emission and absorption lines characteristic of an O5-O6 giant or supergiant. The wind from such a star is fully capable of producing the observed bowshock. H...

The discovery of Jupiter–like planets with high eccentricities raises the question of how these eccentricities are produced. We propose that eccentric giant planets (EGPs) could be formed in open star clusters as a result of purely dynami-cal processes. It is found that at least 3% of the giant planets around stars in open clusters can develop high eccentricities due to multi-body gravitational...

We investigate encounters between giant molecular clouds (GMCs) and star clusters. We propose a single expression for the energy gain of a cluster due to an encounter with a GMC, valid for all encounter distances and GMC properties. This relation is verified with N -body simulations of cluster-GMC encounters, where the GMC is represented by a moving analytical potential. Excellent agreement is ...

HD 59435 is a double-lined spectroscopic binary, one component of which is a magnetic Ap star and the other a G8 or K0 giant (Wade et al. 1996). Both components are very slowly rotating, and the Ap star exhibits spectral lines resolved into their magneti cally-split components. Herein we report additional measurements of the mean magnetic field modulus of the Ap star, measurements of the radial...