This volume provides an overview of the field of Astrostatistics understood as the sub-discipline dedicated to the statistical analysis of astronomical data. It presents examples of the application of the various methodologies now available to current open issues in astronomical research. The technical aspects related to the scientific analysis of the upcoming petabyte-scale databases are emphasized given the importance that scalable Knowledge Discovery techniques will have for the full exploitation of these databases. Based on the 2011 Astrostatistics and Data Mining in Large Astronomical Databases conference and school, this volume gathers examples of the work by leading authors in the areas of Astrophysics and Statistics, including a significant contribution from the various teams that prepared for the processing and analysis of the Gaia data.

Proceedings of the 17th General Assembly, Montreal, 1979

Our planet exists within a space environment affected by constantly changing solar atmosphere producing cosmic particles and electromagnetic waves. This "space weather" profoundly influences the performance of our technology because we primarily use two means for transmitting information and energy; namely, electromagnetic waves and electricity. On an everyday basis, we have developed methods to cope with the normal conditions. However, the sun remains a fiery star whose 'angry' outbursts can potentially destroy spacecrafts, kill astronauts, melt electricity transformers, stop trains, and generally wreak havoc with human activities. Space Weather is the developing field within astronomy that aims at predicting the sun??'s violent activity and minimizing the impacts on our daily lives. Space Weather, Environment, and Societies explains why our technological societies are so dependent on solar activity and how the Sun disturbs the transmission of information and energy. Footnotes expand specific points and the appendices facilitate a more thorough command of the physics involved.

String Theory is our current best candidate for the unification of all fundamental forces, including gravity, in a consistent quantum framework. In this collection of lectures delivered at the Carg se Summer School "String Theory: from Gauge Interactions to Cosmology'', world leading experts provide an up-to-date survey of the latest developments in this topic, including the gauge/gravity correspondence, superstring cosmology and cosmic strings, topological string theory and matrix models, physics beyond the standard model and the landscape of vacua of string theory, conformal field theory and critical phenomena in statistical mechanics. Many more topics are also discussed in shorter contributions by School participants. Written with an emphasis on pedagogy, this volume will be a invaluable resource to students and experts alike.

-Reissue of an important work written by the father of Canadian astronomy -Astronomy is popular! The constant stream of incredible pictures from Hubble telescope has inspired people around the world to look up at the night sky -Beautifully packaged - ideal for gift book market Astronomy is one of the oldest branches of science. It has fascinated humanity from the earliest times. Huge advances have been made since Clarence Augustus Chant's acclaimed work, Our Wonderful Universe, was first published in 1928. We have sent humans into space and walked on the Moon. Spacecraft have landed on Mars, and the International Space Station, a joint project among five space agencies, has been continuously occupied by humans since November 2000. We are using telescopes and satellites to observe the skies, studying planets, moons, stars, galaxies, and comets, as well as supernovae explosions, gamma ray bursts, and cosmic microwave background radiation. Today's and tomorrow's challenges reach ever further, with key questions such as 'is there other life in the Universe?', and 'what is the nature of dark matter?', and 'what is the ultimate fate of the Universe?' at the forefront of modern consciousness. Astronomy is one of the few sciences where amateurs can still play an important active role, especially in the discovery and observation of variable stars, tracking asteroids and discovering transient objects, such as comets and novae. Written in a clear and charming style, Our Wonderful Universe is developed in the form of a talk, presenting the fundamental facts of astronomy in a simple and logical progression. It is illustrated with the complete set of drawings and plates that accompanied the original edition. Its purpose and approach is just as relevant today, and we hope that readers will enjoy the way in which Chant leads us on his journey of discoveries of the Universe.

The scope of the book is to give an overview of the history of astroparticle physics, starting with the discovery of cosmic rays (Victor Hess, 1912) and its background (X-ray, radioactivity).
The book focusses on the ways in which physics changes in the course of this history. The following changes run parallel, overlap, and/or interact:
- Discovery of effects like X-rays, radioactivity, cosmic rays, new particles but also progress through non-discoveries (monopoles) etc.
- The change of the description of nature in physics, as consequence of new theoretical questions at the beginning of the 20th century, giving rise to quantum physics, relativity, etc.
- The change of experimental methods, cooperations, disciplinary divisions.
With regard to the latter change, a main topic of the book is to make the specific multi-diciplinary features of astroparticle physics clear."

Lonely Planet Kids' Amazing Night Sky Atlas, the follow up to our bestselling Amazing World Atlas, looks upwards to the skies for a fun- and fact-packed guide to astronomy. Featuring a mixture of photography and illustration, this hardcover book explores both the science of stargazing - explaining what can be seen in the night sky in different parts of the world - and the practicalities, with handy tips such as how to use a telescope. It also covers the background and history of astronomy, travelling around the world to discover the different stories cultures have told about the night sky and the influence the Moon, the stars and the movement of the planets have had on their people. Expert insights come from David Hawksett, a science writer, lecturer and researcher who has previously worked as the Science & Technology Consultant at Guinness World Records and written for Sky at Night Magazine. Perfect for learning at home, in the classroom or being given as a gift, Lonely Planet Kids' Amazing Night Sky Atlas will inspire budding astronomers and excite them for a lifetime of looking to the skies. Contents includes: Introduction to the Night Sky History of stargazing How to use a telescope Constellations Seasons in the Sky The Zodiac Patterns in the Sky - a global guide Planets Stars Supernovas Black Holes Nebulas Meteor Showers Eclipses Night sky legends from around the world About Lonely Planet Kids: Lonely Planet Kids - an imprint of the world's leading travel authority Lonely Planet - published its first book in 2011. Over the past 45 years, Lonely Planet has grown a dedicated global community of travellers, many of whom are now sharing a passion for exploration with their children. Lonely Planet Kids educates and encourages young readers at home and in school to learn about the world with engaging books on culture, sociology, geography, nature, history, space and more. We want to inspire the next generation of global citizens and help kids and their parents to approach life in a way that makes every day an adventure. Come explore!

Astrometry is on the threshold of great changes due to the fact that this decade, alone, is witnessing an improvement of stellar positions equivalent to the total improvement of the previous two centuries. The Hipparcos Satellite has concluded its observations, and the catalog is in preparation. Preliminary results assure that the Hipparcos catalog will provide positions, parallaxes and annual proper motions for over 100,000 stars with accuracies of 1.5 milliarcseconds. In addition, the Tycho catalog will provide positions of about 30 milliarcseconds accuracy for over 1 million stars, and annual proper motions with 3 milliarcsecond accuracy will subsequently be ob tained by means of first epoch positions from the Astrographic Catalog. Optical interferometers on the ground are beginning operation, and these instruments can provide observational accuracies of approximately one milliarcsecond. Also, the traditional reference frame based on the Fun damental Catalog of bright stars is being replaced by the extragalactic ref erence frame, based on radio sources with accuracies of one milliarcsecond. Thus, astrometry will change from a fundamental reference frame defined in terms of the dynamical reference frame of the solar system with accuracies of 100 milliarcseconds to a space-fixed, extragalactic reference frame with accuracies of one milliarcsecond. Future astrometric observations should be in the 1 -100 milliarcsecond accuracy range. There are a number of concepts for future astrometric instruments in space. Most of these can provide sub-milliarcsecond astrometric accuracies."

This is volume 1 of Planets, Stars and Stellar Systems, a six-volume compendium of modern astronomical research, covering subjects of key interest to the main fields of contemporary astronomy. This volume on Telescopes and Instrumentation edited by Ian S. McLean presents, after a general Introduction to Telescopes, accessible review chapters on Robotic and Survey Telescopes, Segmented Mirror Telescopes, Honeycomb Mirrors for Large Telescopes, Active Thin-Mirror Telescopes, Optical and Infrared Interferometers, Submillimeter Telescopes, Radio Telescopes, Space Telescopes in the Ultraviolet, Optical, and Infrared (UV/O/IR), CMB Telescopes and Optical Systems, Very- High-Energy Gamma-Ray Telescopes, Instrumentation and Detectors, Silicon-Based Image Sensors, Long-Wavelength Infrared Detectors, and Astronomical Spectrographs.

All chapters of the handbook were written by practicing professionals. They include sufficient background material and references to the current literature to allow readers to learn enough about a specialty within astronomy, astrophysics and cosmology to get started on their own practical research projects. In the spirit of the series Stars and Stellar Systems published by Chicago University Press in the 1960s and 1970s, each chapter of Planets, Stars and Stellar Systems can stand on its own as a fundamental review of its respective sub-discipline, and each volume can be used as a textbook or recommended reference work for advanced undergraduate or postgraduate courses. Advanced students and professional astronomers in their roles as both lecturers and researchers will welcome Planets, Stars and Stellar Systems as a comprehensive and pedagogical reference work on astronomy, astrophysics and cosmology.

The Study of Travelling Interplanetary Phenomena (STIP) was formally established by the International Council of Scientific Unions' Special Committee on Solar-Terrestrial Physics (SCOSTEP) in August 1973 with M. Dryer as Convenor and M. A. Shea as Secretary. The scientific objec tives of STIP are the study and search for understanding of quiet (i.e. normal or background) and active periods in the interplanetary medium. The concepts of informal, extemporaneous interdisciplinary research is continuo sly emphasised, and these concepts have proved to be extremely successful in conducting the very productive studies undertaken by the members. About 200 scientists are actively participating in STIP, their interests ranging from solar physics (insofar as it concerns the initi ation of phenomena which move out from the Sun) to the observation and study of comets and planetary magneto spheres and ionospheres. Solar wind plasma and fields, solar and galactic cosmic rays, interstellar interactions, solar radio astronomy and interplanetary scintillations of discrete radio sources are among the topics of interest."

Active Galactic Nuclei radiate over the electro-magnetic spectrum from radio waves to gamma rays. Understanding the physics of these objects therefore requires the synthesis of results from many different domains of Astronomy. It was the aim of the conference "Active Galactic Nuclei across the Electromagnetic Spectrum" to provide a forum where this exchange could take place. Some 300 astronomers participated to the conference, 250 of them presented results either as oral papers or in the form of posters. Observations in all domains of the electro magnetic spectrum in which astronomical observations can be made from the ground or from space were presented. Many theoretical contributions were also given. There has been a tremendous growth in the number and quality of Astronomical obser vations in many spectral domains over the past several years. Students of Active Galactic Nuclei have been particularly keen to make use of the available facilities (both space born and on the ground), often in a very organised way, in order to obtain repeated simultane ous data covering large bands of the spectrum. This approach has produced a qualitatively new set of data for understanding the physics of Active Galactic Nuclei. The task of the meeting was to review this data in a coherent way."

These proceedings celebrate the achievements of the great astronomer Zdenek Kopal, and reflect the state of the art of the dynamically evolving field of binary research, which owes so much to Kopal's pioneering work.

Radio techniques were the nrst to lead astronomy away from the quiescent and limited Universe revealed by traditional observations at optical wave lengths. In the earliest days of radio astronomy, a handful of radio physicists and engineers made one startling discovery after another as they opened up the radio sky. With this collection of classic papers and the extensive intro ductory material, the reader can experience these exciting discoveries, as well as understand the developing techniques and follow the motivations which prompted the various lines of inquiry. For instance he or she will follow in detail the several attempts to detect radio waves from the sun at the turn of the century; the unravelling by Jansky of a "steady hiss type static"; the incredible story of Reber who built a 9 meter dish in his backyard in 1937 and then mapped the Milky Way; the vital discoveries by Hey and colleagues of radio bursts from the Sun and of a discrete source in the constellation of Cygnus; the development of receivers and interferometry in the post-war years by the groups led by Ryle in Cambridge and Pawsey in Sydney; the nrst measurements and exciting identiftcations of Taurus A (the Crab Nebula), Centaurus A, Virgo A, Cassiopeia A, and Cygnus A, the last opening the neld of radio cosmology; the early development of synchroton theory; and the prediction and discovery seven years later of the 21 cm line of neutral hy drogen."

This volume contains the updated and expanded lecture notes of the 37th Saas-Fee Advanced Course organised by the Swiss Society for Astrophysics and Astronomy. It offers the most comprehensive and up to date review of one of the hottest research topics in astrophysics - how our Milky Way galaxy formed. Joss Bland-Hawthorn & Ken Freeman lectured on Near Field Cosmology - The Origin of the Galaxy and the Local Group. Francesca Matteucci's chapter is on Chemical evolution of the Milky Way and its Satellites. As designed by the SSAA, books in this series - and this one too - are targeted at graduate and PhD students and young researchers in astronomy, astrophysics and cosmology. Lecturers and researchers entering the field will also benefit from the book.

Quantum physics may appear complicated, especially if one forgets the "big picture" and gets lost in the details. However, it can become clearer and less tangled if one applies a few fundamental concepts so that simplified approaches can emerge and estimated orders of magnitude become clear. Povh and Rosina's Scattering and Structures presents the properties of quantum systems (elementary particles, nucleons, atoms, molecules, quantum gases, quantum liquids, stars, and early universe) with the help of elementary concepts and analogies between these seemingly different systems. In this new edition, sections on quantum gases and an up to date overview of elementary particles have been added.

This is the latest effort in a sequence of presentations begun in 1949 with a series of lectures on long-focus photographic astrometry given by the author as Fulbright professor in Paris at the invitation by the late H. Mineur, at that time Director of the Institut d' Astrophysique. These earlier lectures were published as a series of review articles in Popular Astronomy (1951) and appeared both as Contributions de l'Institut d'Astrophysique, Serie A, No. 81 and as reprint No. 75 of Sproul Observatory. A more elaborate presenta tion was given in 1963 in Stars and Stellar Systems, which was followed by Principles of Astrometry (1967, W. H. Freeman & Co.). During the second half of 1974, again under Fulbright auspices, at the invitation of Pik Sin The, I lectured at the Astronomical Institute in Amster dam, followed by a short course in May-June 1978 at the invitation of E. P. J. van den Heuvel. I gave a more extensive course at the Institut d' As trophysique at the invitation of J. C. Pecker of the College de France and of J. Audouze, Director of the LA.P. Both in Amsterdam and in Paris I had presented occasional astrometric topics at various times. The opportunity to lecture in France and in Holland has facilitated, influenced and improved the organization and contents of the presentations on the subject of long-focus photographic astrometry."

IAU Symposium 135 on Interstellar Dust was hosted and co-sponsored by NASA's Ames Research Center from July 26-30, 1988. The symposium was held at the lovely campus of Santa Clara University situated around the historic Santa Clara Mission in California. The meeting was made possible by generous grants from the Astron omy and Relativity Branch of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Galactic Astronomy Program of the National Science Foundation. The International Astronomical Union provided travel grants to a few participants from countries with limited travel funds. We are particularly grateful for the support and services rendered by the dedicated staff at NASA's Ames Research Center and to the" SET! Institute for professionally and expeditiously administering the U.S. grants. This symposium brought together 199 scientists representing 19 different coun tries. The wide range of interest and expertise of the participants - all in some way related to interstellar dust - is reflected in the great variety of topics that were discussed during the symposium ranging from UV, visible and IR observations of interstellar extinction to quantum-statistical calculations of the IR emission from highly vibrationally excited molecules. During the course of the meeting, 41 invited review papers and 140 contributed papers were presented. This book is a collection of the invited review papers. The contributed papers have been published in a companion volume, NASA CP-3036, available from National Technical Information Service, Springfield, Virginia 22161, USA.

This book presents the latest knowledge of the newly discovered Earth-like exoplanets and reviews improvements in both radio and optical SETI. A key aim is to stimulate fresh discussion on algorithms that will be of high value in this extremely complicated search. Exoplanets resembling Earth could well be able to sustain life and support the evolution of technological civilizations, but to date, all searches for such life forms have proved fruitless. The failings of SETI observations are well recognized, and a new search approach is necessary. In this book, different detection algorithms that exploit state-of-the-art, low-cost, and extremely fast multiprocessors are examined and compared. Novel methods such as the agnostic entropy and high-sensitivity blind signal extraction algorithms should represent a quantum leap forward in SETI. The book is of interest to all researchers in the field and hopefully stimulates significant progress in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

IAU Transactions XXIIB summarizes the work of the XXIInd General Assembly. The discourses given during the Inaugural and Closing Ceremonies are reproduced in Chapters I and III, respectively. The proceedings of the two sessions of the General Assembly will be found in Chapter II, which includes the Resolutions and the report of the Finance Committee. The Statutes, Bye-Laws and a few working rules of the Union are published in Chapter IV. The Accounts and other aspects of the administration of the Union are recorded in Chapter V, together with the report of the Executive Committee for this last triennium, and provide the permanent record for the Union in the period 1991-1994. This volume also contains the Commission reports from The Hague compiled by the Presidents of the Commissions (Chapter VI). Finally, Chapter VII contains the list of countries adhering to the Union and the alphabetical, geographical and commission membership lists of about 8000 individual members. The IAU still appears to be unique among the scientific Unions in maintaining this category of individual membership which contributes in a crucial way to the spirit and the aims of the Union.

The world's leading textbook on astrobiology-ideal for an introductory one-semester course and now fully revised and updated Are we alone in the cosmos? How are scientists seeking signs of life beyond our home planet? Could we colonize other planets, moons, or even other star systems? This introductory textbook, written by a team of four renowned science communicators, educators, and researchers, tells the amazing story of how modern science is seeking the answers to these and other fascinating questions. They are the questions that are at the heart of the highly interdisciplinary field of astrobiology, the study of life in the universe. Written in an accessible, conversational style for anyone intrigued by the possibilities of life in the solar system and beyond, Life in the Universe is an ideal place to start learning about the latest discoveries and unsolved mysteries in the field. From the most recent missions to Saturn's moons and our neighboring planet Mars to revolutionary discoveries of thousands of exoplanets, from the puzzle of life's beginning on Earth to the latest efforts in the search for intelligent life elsewhere, this book captures the imagination and enriches the reader's understanding of how astronomers, planetary scientists, biologists, and other scientists make progress at the cutting edge of this dynamic field. Enriched with a wealth of engaging features, this textbook brings any citizen of the cosmos up to speed with the scientific quest to discover whether we are alone or part of a universe full of life. An acclaimed text designed to inspire students of all backgrounds to explore foundational questions about life in the cosmos Completely revised and updated to include the latest developments in the field, including recent exploratory space missions to Mars, frontier exoplanet science, research on the origin of life on Earth, and more Enriched with helpful learning aids, including in-chapter Think about It questions, optional Do the Math and Special Topic boxes, Movie Madness boxes, end-of-chapter exercises and problems, quick quizzes, and much more Supported by instructor's resources, including an illustration package and test bank, available upon request

"Meteoric phenomena" is the accepted term for the complex of physi cal phenomena that accompany the entry of meteoric bodies into the at mosphere of the earth (or of any planet). "Meteoric bodies" are usually defined as cosmic bodies observed by optical or radar techniques, when they enter the atmosphere. The limiting sensitivity of present-day radar equipment makes it possible to record meteors of up to stellar magnitude +14, while the most brilliant bolides may reach magnitude -19. On a mass 7 7 scale this corresponds approximately to a range of 10- to 10 g. How ever, met or astronomy is also concerned with larger objects, namely crater-forming meteorites, or objects that cause large-scale destruction when they arrive through the atmosphere (an example is the Tunguska River meteorite). Consideration of the interaction of such objects with 12 the terrestrial atmosphere extends the mass range to 10 g. On the other hand, scientists studying fragmentation processes in meteoric bod 7 ies have to consider particles with masses less than 10- g, and the use of data from meteoric-particle counters on rockets and artificial satel lites, from microcraters on the lunar surface, and from noctilucent clouds 12 lowers the minimum mass to 10- g. Therefore, the mass range of meteoric bodies, or meteoroids, encompasses 24 orders of magnitude. Although recent years have witnessed considerable development in meteor research, both in the Soviet Union and elsewhere, the main mono graphs on meteor physics were published twenty or more years ago."

Ever since its infancy, humankind has been seeking answers to some very basic and profound questions. Did the Universe begin? If it did, how old is it, and where did it come from? What is its shape? What is it made of? Fascinating myths and brilliant in- itions attempting to solve such enigmas can be found all through the history of human thought. Every culture has its own legends, itsownworldcreationtales, itsphilosophicalspeculations, itsre- gious beliefs. Modern science, however, cannot content itself with fanciful explanations, no matter how suggestive they are. No- days, our theories about the Universe, built upon rational ded- tion, have to survive the hard test of experiment and observation. Cosmology, the science which studies the origin and evo- tion of the Universe, had to overcome enormous dif?culties before it could achieve the same level of dignity as other physical dis- plines. At ?rst, it had no serious physical model and mathematical tools that could be used to address the complexity of the problems it had to face. Then, it suffered from a chronic lack of experim- tal data, which made it almost impossible to test the theoretical speculations. Given this situation, answering rigorously the many questions on the nature of the Universe seemed nothing more than a delusion. Today, however, things have changed. We live in the golden age of cosmology: an exciting moment, when, for the ?rst time, we are able to scienti?cally understand our Univers

th The 4 ESO CCO Workshop, Optical Detectors for Astronomy, was held during September 13-16, 1999 at its usual location, the headquarters of the European Southern Observatory in Garching, Germany. We prefer to remember this workshop as a "meeting of friends," who came to Garching to visit ESO and to present their work, rather than a formal meeting. Based on our experience with the 1996 ESO CCO workshop, we deliberately put emphasis on creating an environment that encouraged the participants to stay together and informally exchange ideas. These informal events began with a tour of the BWM auto factory and continued with a reception at "SchloB Beletic," the conference dinner at a real SchloB of the Bavarian International School (where the participants enjoyed basket, baseball, table soccer, rock climbing and eventually dancing) and concluded with a tour of the Paulaner Brewery and dinner at the Seehaus in the Englisher Garten. The lunch "Biergarten," adjacent to the poster session area, was a daily meeting point. The result was a good mixture of excellent presentations and posters, collected in these Proceedings, and many occasions for people to get in touch and to have fun together, as witnessed by the selection of workshop pictures that we randomly placed between papers. This book contains a special contribution.

Written by active research scientists who study the volcanism of Earth and of other planets, the contributions provide the first general review of volcanic activity throughout the Solar System. Successive chapters describe past and present volcanic activity as it is observed throughout the Solar System. These chapters relate to readers not only our present knowledge of volcanism throughout the Solar System but also how frontline scientists working in this field conduct their research.