A team leaded by Kartik Sheth has been recently awarded 637 hours of Spitzer observing time to carry out an extensive infrared survey of nearby galaxies. The team comprises researches of several institutions, including GUAIX members Armando Gil de Paz and Juan Carlos Muñoz Mateos. The so-called Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (S4G) will map more than 1700 galaxies closer than 40 Mpc using the IRAC camera at 3.6 and 4.5 microns, the only channels that will work at full sensitivity once Spitzer runs out of coolant. These observations will shed light on crucial issues regarding the structure of galaxies: bars, rings, spiral arms, truncations in the light profiles... Below you can see three nearby galaxies imaged at 3.6 micron by the SINGS survey, showing the kind of data S4G will provide.

Ignacio Ferreras, who works at the Department of Space and Climate Physics (Mullard Space Science Laboratory, University College London), has spent one day (17/12/2008) at the UCM visiting the people working on stellar populations. He has given the seminar entitled "Archaeology of early-type galaxies".

Mercedes Prieto is part of the scientific staff of Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias and a permanent teacher at the University of La Laguna (Tenerife, Spain). She is a specialist on Extragalactic Astronomy, and our main collaborator in developing semi-analytical models of galaxy evolution. Mercedes has recently spent two days working with us.