EURD observations of interstellar radiation

The hot interstellar medium (ISM) has far-reaching effect upon thestructure of galaxies. Although ISM heating processes are fairly wellunderstood, after decades of study, the processes that cool the hotinterstellar medium remain obscure. The EURD spectrograph was designed tomeasure the diffuse cosmic background from 350 to 1100 Å in order tostudy the hot ISM and the mechanisms by which it sheds its energy. Wepresent the first analysis of EURD observations of the cosmic background.These EURD observations have proven to be far more sensitive than previouswork; compared to previous results, we have improved the limits to theintensity of 450 to 900 Å line emission from the ISM by one to twoorders of magnitude. Our limit to OVI 1032 Å / 1038 Å doublet of 7900ph s^-1 cm^-2 str^-1 is the lowest yet reported. The EURDlimits to line emission are less intense than predicted by a varietytheoretical models of the local ISM.     

The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: luminosity dependence of galaxy clustering

We investigate the dependence of the strength of galaxy clustering on intrinsic luminosity using the Anglo-Australian two degree field galaxy redshift survey (2dFGRS). The 2dFGRS is over an order of magnitude larger than previous redshift surveys used to address this issue. We measure the projected two-point correlation function of galaxies in a series of volume-limited samples. The projected correlation function is free from any distortion of the clustering pattern induced by peculiar motions and is well described by a power law in pair separation over the range     . The clustering of     galaxies in real space is well-fitted by a correlation length     and power-law slope     . The clustering amplitude increases slowly with absolute magnitude for galaxies fainter than M *, but rises more strongly at higher luminosities. At low luminosities, our results agree with measurements from the Southern Sky Redshift Survey 2 by Benoist et al. However, we find a weaker dependence of clustering strength on luminosity at the highest luminosities. The correlation function amplitude increases by a factor of 4.0 between     and −22.5, and the most luminous galaxies are 3.0 times more strongly clustered than L * galaxies. The power-law slope of the correlation function shows remarkably little variation for samples spanning a factor of 20 in luminosity. Our measurements are in very good agreement with the predictions of the hierarchical galaxy formation models of Benson et al.     

Wisp motions in the Crab nebula

We present the results of a CCD monitoring campaign of the continuum emission from the central region of the Crab nebula, amounting to 17 epochs spread over 3.5 years. The data provide clear evidence that the brightest wisps move outward from the pulsar at mildly relativistic velocities. This motion, combined with the shape of the wisps, supports the idea that they arise at a standing shock in an equatorial wind. The deprojected velocity of the wisps in the equatorial plane is c/3. We see only small changes in the so-called ‘thin wisps’ which leads us to suggest that these wisps may be the result of a back-flow from the shock in a toroidal cavity around the pulsar.     

FAUST observations near the North Galactic Pole

We analyse a UV observation with FAUST in the direction of the North Galactic Pole. The region includes a cirrus cloud (G251.2+73.3) and a dark globule, and the FAUST image contains 75 UV sources. We discuss the UV source detection and their identification with optical counterparts. We use, for the first time, low-resolution spectral information as the primary means of identifying possible optical counterparts. This is complemented, and sometimes modified, by optical information available from existing data bases. The results are interpreted with the help of maps of the distribution of far-infrared emission and of the neutral hydrogen gas. We discuss the types of objects found, the degree of matching with the predictions of our UV Galaxy model, and the general behaviour of the Galactic UV extinction in this Milky Way part. We compare the UV results for this region with similar observations in the same neighbourhood, which are less affected by dust, and attempt to explain the peculiar distribution of UV magnitudes as a result of a peculiar distribution of foreground dust, which does not follow the accepted dust-to-gas relation.     

Evidence for silicate dissolution on Mars from the Nakhla meteorite

Veins containing carbonates, hydrous silicates, and sulfates that occur within and between grains of augite and olivine in the Nakhla meteorite are good evidence for the former presence of liquid water in the Martian crust. Aqueous solutions gained access to grain interiors via narrow fractures, and those fractures within olivine whose walls were oriented close to (001) were preferentially widened by etching along [001]. This orientation selective dissolution may have been due to the presence within olivine of shock‐formed [001](100) and [001]{110} screw dislocations. The duration of etching is likely to have been brief, possibly less than a year, and the solutions responsible were sufficiently cool and reducing that laihunite did not form and Fe liberated from the olivine was not immediately oxidized. The pores within olivine were mineralized in sequence by siderite, nanocrystalline smectite, a Fe‐Mg phyllosilicate, and then gypsum, whereas only the smectite occurs within augite. The nanocrystalline smectite was deposited as submicrometer thick layers on etched vein walls, and solution compositions varied substantially between and sometimes during precipitation of each layer. Together with microcrystalline gypsum the Fe‐Mg phyllosilicate crystallized as water briefly returned to some of the veins following desiccation fracturing of the smectite. These results show that etching of olivine enhanced the porosity and permeability of the nakhlite parent rock and that dissolution and secondary mineralization took place within the same near‐static aqueous system.     

Hidden subluminous stars among the FAUST UV sources towards Ophiuchus

We present results of an analysis of a UV image in the direction of Ophiuchus, obtained with the FAUST instrument. The image contains 228 UV sources. Most of these are identified as normal early-type stars through correlations with catalogued objects. For the first time in this project we identify UV sources as such stars by selecting suitable candidates in crowded fields as the bluest objects in colour–colour diagrams using observations from the Wise Observatory. These candidates are then studied using low-resolution spectroscopy, which allows the determination of spectral types to an accuracy of about one-half class, for 60 stars.
Synthetic photometry of spectral data is performed in order to predict the expected UV emission, on the basis of the photometric information. These results are used along with the Hipparcos /Tycho information, to search for subluminous stars. The comparison of the predicted emission with the FAUST measured magnitudes allows us to select 12 stars as highly probable evolved hot stars. High signal-to-noise spectra are obtained for nine of these stars, and Balmer line profiles are compared with the prediction of atmosphere models and with the spectrum of real stellar atmospheres. Among the nine candidates, six are classified as previously unrecognized sdB stars, and two as white dwarfs. Our result indicates that indeed more bright subluminous stars are still unrecognized in the existing samples.