In situ spheroid formation in distant submillimetre-bright galaxies.

Most stars in today's Universe reside within spheroids, which are bulges of spiral galaxies and elliptical galaxies. Their formation is still an unsolved problem. Infrared/submillimetre-bright galaxies at high redshifts have long been suspected to be related to spheroid formation.

ALMA observations of the young protostellar system Barnard 1b: signatures of an incipient hot corino in B1b-S.

The Barnard 1b core shows signatures of being at the earliest stages of low-mass star formation, with two extremely young and deeply embedded protostellar objects. Hence, this core is an ideal target to study the structure and chemistry of the first objects formed in the collapse of prestellar cores. We present ALMA Band 6 spectral line observations at ~0.

Abundances of sulphur molecules in the Horsehead nebula First NS detection in a photodissociation region.

Context: Sulphur is one of the most abundant elements in the Universe (S/H1.310 ) and plays a crucial role in biological systems on Earth. The understanding of its chemistry is therefore of major importance.

Oxygen fractionation in dense molecular clouds.

We have developed the first gas-grain chemical model for oxygen fractionation (also including sulphur fractionation) in dense molecular clouds, demonstrating that gas-phase chemistry generates variable oxygen fractionation levels, with a particularly strong effect for NO, SO, O, and SO. This large effect is due to the efficiency of the neutral O + NO, O + SO, and O + O exchange reactions. The modeling results were compared to new and existing observed isotopic ratios in a selection of cold cores.

High-speed molecular cloudlets around the Galactic center's supermassive black hole.

We present 1″-resolution ALMA observations of the circumnuclear disk (CND) and the interstellar environment around Sgr A*. The images unveil the presence of small spatial scale CO (=3-2) molecular "cloudlets" (≲20,000 AU size) within the central parsec of the Milky Way, in other words, inside the cavity of the CND, and moving at high speeds, up to 300 km s along the line-of-sight. The CO-emitting structures show intricate morphologies: extended and filamentary at high negative-velocities (v ≲-150 km s), more localized and clumpy at extreme positive-velocities (v ≳+200 km s).