Astronomy & Astrophysics published the first
analysis of a catalog of 84 million individual stars in the Milky Way
bulge as a part of the VVV ESO public survey. This gigantic data set
allows building the largest, deepest, and most accurate color-magnitude
diagram ever produced, containing more than ten times more stars than
any previous study.
Astronomy & Astrophysics
is publishing a special feature dedicated to the early
science results of the GREAT far-infrared instrument onboard the SOFIA
airborne observatory. We present 22 articles reporting on the first
astronomical
results and the technologies used. Among other features, GREAT allows
detecting interstellar molecular species not observable from the
ground, some
of them for the first time ever.