Dust and molecules are found in a large variety of astrophysical environments, in particular in the circumstellar material ejected by evolved stars. This book brings together the leading astronomers and astrophysicists in the field of molecular astrophysics and stellar physics to discuss the important issues of dust and molecular formation, the role of solids in circumstellar environments, molecules as probes of circumstellar parameters, the stellar contribution to the enrichment of the Galaxy, and the latest observational data in various wavelength domains, in partiular in the infrared with results from the Infrared Space Observatory. The astrophysical senarios include late-type stars, novae, Wolf-Rayet stars, Luminous Blue Variables and supernovae. Audience: Researchers and graduate students in the fields of stellar physics, stellar evolution and astrochemistry.

Packed with up-to-date astronomical data about the Solar System, our Galaxy and the wider Universe, this is a one-stop reference for astronomers of all levels. It gives the names, positions, sizes and other key facts of all the planets and their satellites; discusses the Sun in depth, from sunspots to solar eclipses; lists the dates for cometary returns, close-approach asteroids, and significant meteor showers; and includes 88 star charts, with the names, positions, magnitudes and spectra of the stars, along with key data on nebulae and clusters. Full of facts and figures, this is the only book you need to look up data about astronomy. It is destined to become the standard reference for everyone interested in astronomy.

The question of the existence of other worlds and other living beings has been present in the human quest for knowledge since as far as Epicurus. For centuries this question belonged to the fields of philosophy and theology. The theoretical problem of the formation of the Solar System, and hence of other planetary systems, was tackled only during the 18th century, while the first observational attempts for a detection started less than one hundred years ago. Direct observation of an extra-solar planetary system is an extraordinarily difficult problem: extra-solar planets are at huge distances, are incredibly faint and are overwhelmed by the bright light of their own stars. With virtually no observational insight to test their models, theoreticians have remained for decades in a difficult position to make substantial progress. Yet, the field of stellar formation has provided since the 1980s both the the oretical and observational evidences for the formation of discs at the stage of star birth and for debris materials orbiting the very young stellar systems. It was tempting to consider that these left-overs might indeed later agglomerate into planetary systems more or less similar to ours. Then came observational evidences for planets outside the Solar System."

Electroweak Phase Transition and the Early Universe, a NATO Advanced Re- search Workshop, was held March 23-25, 1994, at the Hotel Tivoli in Sintra, Portugal. The meeting was co-sponsored by three other Lisbon-based institutions: the Fundac;ao Gulbenkian, J. N.!. C. T. (Junta Nacional para Investigac;ao Cientifica e Tecnologica) and G. T. A. E. (Grupo Teorico de Alta Energias). The workshop brought together a large number of theoretical physicists who are actively researching topics relevant to the understanding of the standard model of electroweak interactions in the early universe. We were pleased and overwhelmed by the positive, and sometimes instan- taneous response that our enterprise raised right from its inception. The old town of Sintra provided a serene and pleasant environment for the par- ticipants. Some heated and controversial discussions on many unanswered questions in the standard model took place throughout the three days of the workshop. If one consensus emerged from the meeting, it was the imperative need for non-perturbative techniques for the understanding of the electroweak phase transition.

This book traces the development of Kepler's ideas along with his unsteady wanderings in a world dominated by religious turmoil. Johannes Kepler, like Galileo, was a supporter of the Copernican heliocentric world model. From an early stage, his principal objective was to discover "the world behind the world", i.e. to identify the underlying order and the secrets that make the world function as it does: the hidden world harmony. Kepler was driven both by his religious belief and Greek mysticism, which he found in ancient mathematics. His urge to find a construct encompassing the harmony of every possible aspect of the world - including astronomy, geometry and music - is seen as a manifestation of a deep human desire to bring order to the apparent chaos surrounding our existence. This desire continues to this day as we search for a theory that will finally unify and harmonise the forces of nature.

Symposium 148 "The Magellanic Clouds and their Dynamical Interaction with the Milky Way" was the first IAU Symposium held in Australia since 1973. In all, 23 countries were represented by 149 participants. The Symposium was held from July 9 to 13, 1990 at Womens College, the University of Sydney. The last symposium on the Magellanic Clouds' was held in 1983 in Ttibingen, Germany. Since then new ground-and satellite-based instruments have become available. A range of results from these instruments were presented at IAU Symposium 148 and are published in these proceedings. IAU Symposium 148 was timed to coincide with the commissioning of the Australia Telescope, and indeed, a few of the first results from that instrument were presented at this Symposium Over the next decade the Australia Telescope is destined to make a major impact on Magellanic Cloud research. Papers are arranged in five main sections reflecting the Symposium timetable: * Large-Scale Structure and Kinematics * Star Formation and Clustering * Stellar Evolution * The Interstellar Medium * The LMC-SMC-Galaxy System These are preceeded by both the introduction to and the summary of the Symposium. Questions and answers from the oral sessions are reproduced at the end of each section.

Stellar magnetism is the study of the magnetic field of the Sun and other stars and is a rapidly developing field of astrophysics. This book, an authoritative account with broad astronomical scope, has grown out of the lifelong work of an outstanding researcher in the subject.

The subject of this volume in the Astrophysics and Space Science Library is Electro magnetic Radiation in Space. It is essentially based on the lectures given at the third ESRO Summer School which was held from 19 July to 13 August, 1965, in Alpbach, Austria. Fifty-eight selected students attended the courses representing the following countries: Austria (2), Belgium (1), Denmark (1), France (12), Germany (10), Italy (7), Netherlands (2), Spain (4), Sweden (6), Switzerland (3), United Kingdom (9), United States (1). Thirteen lectures courses and nine seminars were given by sixteen different scientists in total. In this book the courses and seminars have been classified in three parts according to the kind of radiation which they mainly deal with: Ultraviolet Radiation, X Radiation and Cosmic Radiation. These parts can be broken down further in theo retical and observational aspects, whereas in the first and second part solar as well as stellar ultraviolet- and X-radiation can be distinguished. * Due to various reasons the publication of this volume had to be delayed; it was therefore judged appropriate to bring the text up to date. The various lecturers have been asked to revise the manuscripts and to eventually add new information which has been acquired in this rapidly evolving field of space astrophysics. Most authors have responded positively to this request, some even have completely rewritten the manuscript."

This thesis discusses the evolution of galaxies through the study of the morphology, kinematics, and star formation properties of a sample of nearby galaxies. The main body of the thesis describes the kinematic observations with the GHaFAS Fabry-Perot instrument on the William Herschel Telescope of a sample of 29 spiral galaxies. The work is closely related to the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies, and uses the mid-infrared data of that survey to determine key parameters of the galaxies studied. From these data, important results are obtained on streaming and other non-circular motions in galaxies, on the distribution and rates of star formation, and on how correlations of these parameters and of the rotation curve shape with basic galaxy parameters yield clues on the evolutionary processes taking place in disk galaxies.

Volatiles in the Martian Crust is a vital reference for future missions - including ESA's EXO Mars and NASA's Mars2020 rover - looking for evidence of life on Mars and the potential for habitability and human exploration of the Martian crust. Mars science is a rapidly evolving topic with new data returned from the planet on a daily basis. The book presents chapters written by well-established experts who currently focus on the topic, providing the reader with a fresh, up-to-date and accurate view. Organized into two main sections, the first half of the book focuses on the Martian meteorites and specific volatile elements. The second half of the book explores processes and locations on the crust, including what we have learned about volatile mobility in the Martian crust. Coverage includes data from orbiter and in situ rovers and landers, geochemical and geophysical modeling, and combined data from the SNC meteorites.

For thousands of years, one scientific puzzle has fascinated and perplexed the greatest philosophers, mathematicians, physicists, and psychologists - why do the moon and sun appear so much larger on the horizon than when high up in the sky? Now, two leading psychologists have provided a compelling account of this fascinating illusion. Taking us through the history, the characters involved, the attempts made to explain the illusion, through to modern day studies of visual perception, the book is the most comprehensive account of this puzzle so far. This is a work which will remain, for some time to come, the definitive book on a mystery that has fascinated and tested the greatest minds throughout the ages. Accessibly written, it will appeal to readers of popular science, along with those within the disciplines of psychology, mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy, from undergraduate upwards.

The idea of having a meeting came to the Editors when working on several aspects of galactic Be and B[e] stars. They found that a general summary of the properties of B[e] stars was missing, so that the organiza tion of a first meeting on these objects appeared as very useful. B[e] stars have hydrogen line emission and forbidden [Fe 11] and [0 I] emission lines in their spectra; they are also characterized by a strong IR excess due to circumstellar dust. Having a large amount of extinction in the UV and the visual they have been less frequently observed than other emission line objects. Although about one hundred galactic objects have been classified as B[e], only fif teen or so have been studied in some detail. Besides this, the evolutionary status of these objects is rat her controversial, are they pre-main sequence or stars on the way to become nUclei of planetary nebulae? Other difficult problems appear when considering the relations of these stars with other similar groups, like Herbig AeBe stars, Be, luminous blue variables and the superluminous B[e] stars observed in the Magellanic Clouds. The conference seems timely since large surveys like DENIS and 2Mass, plus new space and new instruments for the micron, millimeter and cen timeter wavelength region will result in the discovery of more stars of this group.

This book focuses on understanding the stellar populations of massive star clusters and aims to investigate the origin, evolution and properties of binary systems, their collision products, as well as the general characteristics (e.g. ages, metal content) of stellar population(s) in star clusters. It introduces the basic background knowledge of various stellar populations in star clusters as well as their formation, interaction and evolution and offers high impact observational results on our understanding of the formation and evolution mode of star clusters. Based on these discoveries, this book proposes a series of future projects that can shed light on these topics. The research introduced in this book reveals key features of star clusters formation and by extension how all stars formed in our universe.

Methods and Materials for Remote Sensing: Infrared Photo-Detectors, Radiometers and Arrays presents the basic principles and the guidelines for the design of IR and microwave radiometers intended for the detection of weak electromagnetic signals in a noisy background.
Significant attention is paid in this book to the discussion of the origin of the noises and consideration of the physical factors limiting the sensitivity of photo sensors. The physico-chemical properties of narrow-band semiconductors, which are the basic photosensitive materials for the microwave and IR radiometry, are discussed. Also described are the methods for growing the single crystals, epitaxial films and arrays from solid solutions of these compounds for the application in photosensitive detectors.
The main goal of Methods and Materials for Remote Sensing: Infrared Photo-Detectors, Radiometers and Arrays is to present the entire material from the unifying physical viewpoint, which will be helpful for the designers of photo-detecting devices, and professionals contributing in various areas of remote sensing.

This book describes how advances in recording and printing technologies have influenced the research and teaching style of succeeding generations of physicists, chemists, and astronomers, particularly from the boom of spectrum analysis in the 1860s until the advent of quantum mechanics. Seemingly disparate strands such as spectrochemistry and cartography, instrument-design and science education are woven into the rich tapestry of one of the most fascinating and influential research-technologies of the late 19th and early 20th century.

This book provides an up-to-date interdisciplinary geoscience-focused overview of solid solar system bodies and their evolution, based on the comparative description of processes acting on them. Planetary research today is a strongly multidisciplinary endeavor with efforts coming from engineering and natural sciences. Key focal areas of study are the solid surfaces found in our Solar System. Some have a direct interaction with the interplanetary medium and others have dynamic atmospheres. In any of those cases, the geological records of those surfaces (and sub-surfaces) are key to understanding the Solar System as a whole: its evolution and the planetary perspective of our own planet. This book has a modular structure and is divided into 4 sections comprising 15 chapters in total. Each section builds upon the previous one but is also self-standing. The sections are: Methods and tools Processes and Sources Integration and Geological Syntheses Frontiers The latter covers the far-reaching broad topics of exobiology, early life, extreme environments and planetary resources, all areas where major advancements are expected in the forthcoming decades and both key to human exploration of the Solar System. The target readership includes advanced undergraduate students in geoscience-related topics with no specific planetary science knowledge; undergraduates in other natural science domains (e.g. physics, astronomy, biology or chemistry); graduates in engineering and space systems design who want to complement their knowledge in planetary science. The authors' backgrounds span a broad range of topics and disciplines: rooted in Earth geoscience, their expertise covers remote sensing and cartography, field mapping, impact cratering, volcanology and tectonics, sedimentology and stratigraphy exobiology and life in extreme environments, planetary resources and mining. Several generations of planetary scientists are cooperating to provide a modern view on a discipline developed from Earth during and through Space exploration.

Spectroscopy is the principal tool used in astronomy to investigate the Universe beyond Earth's atmosphere. Through the analysis of electromagnetic radiation, spectrographs enable observers to assess the chemical composition, kinematics, and local physical properties of distant stars, nebulae, and galaxies. Thoroughly illustrated and clearly written, this handbook offers a practical and comprehensive guide to the different spectroscopic methods used in all branches of astronomy, at all wavelengths from radio to gamma-ray, and from ground and space-borne instruments. After a historical overview of the field, the central chapters navigate the various types of hardware used in spectroscopy. In-depth descriptions of modern techniques and their benefits and drawbacks help you choose the most promising observation strategy. The handbook finishes by assessing new technologies and future prospects for deep-sky observation. This text is an ideal reference for today's graduate students and active researchers, as well as those designing or operating spectroscopic instruments.

Our esteemed colleague C. V. Vishveshwara, popularly known as Vishu, turned sixty on 6th March 1998. His colleagues and well wishers felt that it would be appropriate to celebrate the occasion by bringing out a volume in his honour. Those of us who have had the good fortune to know Vishu, know that he is unique, in a class by himself. Having been given the privilege to be the volume's editors, we felt that we should attempt something different in this endeavour. Vishu is one of the well known relativists from India whose pioneer ing contributions to the studies of black holes is universally recognised. He was a student of Charles Misner. His Ph. D. thesis on the stability of the Schwarzschild black hole, coordinate invariant characterisation of the sta tionary limit and event horizon for Kerr black holes and subsequent seminal work on quasi-normal modes of black holes have passed on to become the starting points for detailed mathematical investigations on the nature of black holes. He later worked on other aspects related to black holes and compact objects. Many of these topics have matured over the last thirty years. New facets have also developed and become current areas of vigorous research interest. No longer are black holes, ultracompact objects or event horizons mere idealisations of mathematical physicists but concrete entities that astrophysicists detect, measure and look for. Astrophysical evidence is mounting up steadily for black holes."

The Hipparcos satellite, developed and launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) in 1989, was the first space mission dedicated to astrometry - the accurate measurement of positions, distances, and proper motions of stars. Amongst the key achievements of its measurements are refining the cosmic distance scale, characterising the large-scale kinematic motions in the Solar neighbourhood, providing precise luminosities for stellar modelling, and confirming Einstein's prediction of the effect of gravity on starlight. This authoritative account of the Hipparcos contributions over the following decade is an outstanding reference for astronomers, astrophysicists and cosmologists. It reviews the applications of the data in different areas, describing the subject and the state-of-the-art before Hipparcos, and summarising all major contributions to the topic made by Hipparcos. It contains a detailed overview of the Hipparcos and Tycho Catalogues, their annexes and their updates. Each chapter ends with comprehensive references to relevant literature.

This volume contains selected and expanded contributions presented at the 3rd Symposium on Space Optical Instruments and Applications in Beijing, China June 28 - 29, 2016. This conference series is organised by the Sino-Holland Space Optical Instruments Laboratory, a cooperation platform between China and the Netherlands. The symposium focused on key technological problems of optical instruments and their applications in a space context. It covered the latest developments, experiments and results regarding theory, instrumentation and applications in space optics. The book is split across five topical sections. The first section covers space optical remote sensing system design, the second advanced optical system design, the third remote sensor calibration and measurement. Remote sensing data processing and information extraction is then presented, followed by a final section on remote sensing data applications.

Cosmic masers, naturally occurring amplifiers of microwave emission from atoms and molecules in the Milky Way and other galaxies, provide important tools to investigate astrophysical environments. The first, hydroxyl (OH) masers were discovered in 1965 and since that time several thousand sources of maser emission, from a variety of cosmic molecules, have been discovered and studied. Because this natural emission occurs at discrete frequencies, which depend upon specific atomic or molecular transitions, masers are also useful for studying the structure and dynamics of our own galaxy. Masers in other galaxies are now used for cosmological studies of the dynamics of massive black holes in galactic nuclei and to directly measure the Hubble constant, H0. This volume contains a comprehensive, up-to-date review of cosmic masers, their nature, sources, environments and uses, as presented at IAU Symposium 287, the fourth international symposium on cosmic masers.

R. DIEHL, R. KALLENBACH, E. PARIZOT and R. VON STEIGER / The Astrophysics of Galactic Cosmic Rays 3 I: KEY OBSERVATIONS ON GALACTIC COSMIC RAYS M. E. WIEDENBECK, N. E. YANASAK, A. c. CUMMINGS, AJ. DAVIS, I. S. GEORGE, R. A. LESKE, R. A. MEWALDT, E. C. STONE, P. L. HINK, M. H. ISRAEL, M. LIJOWSKI, E. R. CHRISTIAN and TT VON ROSENVINGE / The Origin of Primary Cosmic Rays: Constraints from ACE Elemental and Isotopic Composition Observations 15 R. A. MEWALDT, N. E. YANASAK, M. E. WIEDENBECK, AJ. DAVIS, w. R. BINNS, E. R. CHRISTIAN, A. C. CUMMINGS, P. L. HINK, R. A. LESKE, S. M. NIEBUR, E. C. STONE and TT VON ROSENVINGE / Radioactive Clocks and Cosmic-Ray Transport in the Galaxy 27 J. J. CONNELL / Cosmic-Ray Composition as Observed by Ulysses 41 R. RAMATY, R. E. LINGENFELTER and B. KOZLOVSKY / Spallogenic Light Elements and Cosmic-Ray Origin 51 E. PARIZOT / Galactic Cosmic Rays and the Light Elements 61 G. MEYNET, M. ARNOULD, G. PAULUS and A. MAEDER / Wolf-Rayet Star Nucleosynthesis and the Isotopic Composition of the Galactic Cosmic Rays 73 S. P. SWORDY / The Energy Spectra and Anisotropies of Cosmic Rays 85 G. TARLE and M. SCHUBNELL / Antiparticles 95 D. MULLER / Cosmic Rays Beyond the Knee 105 II: LESSONS FROM THE HELIOSPHERE G. M. MASON / Heliospheric Lessons for Galactic Cosmic-Ray Acceleration 119 R. A.

This book presents key works of Boris Hessen, outstanding Soviet philosopher of science, available here in English for the first time. Quality translations are accompanied by an editors' introduction and annotations. Boris Hessen is known in history of science circles for his "Social and Economic Roots of Newton's Principia" presented in London (1931), which inspired new approaches in the West. As a philosopher and a physicist, he was tasked with developing a Marxist approach to science in the 1920s. He studied the history of physics to clarify issues such as reductionism and causality as they applied to new developments. With the philosophers called the "Dialecticians", his debates with the opposing "Mechanists" on the issue of emergence are still worth studying and largely ignored in the many recent works on this subject. Taken as a whole, the book is a goldmine of insights into both the foundations of physics and Soviet history.

From the beginning of Space Astronomy, the Extreme Ultraviolet band of the spectrum (roughly defined as the decade in energy from 90-900 A...) was deemed to be the unobservable ultraviolet'. Pioneering results from an EUV telescope on the Apollo-Soyuz Mission in 1975 forcibly demonstrated that this view was incorrect; but it required the all-sky surveys of the English Wide-Field Camera and the Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer to demonstrate the broad potential of this field. Over 700 EUV sources have now been detected. Over 150 researchers from 16 countries gathered to share results in this new field at the International Astronomical Union Colloquium No. 152. Papers were presented on a wide variety of topics including cool star coronae, white dwarf atmospheres and evolution, neutron stars, the Io torus, cataclysmic variable stars, active galactic nuclei, the interstellar medium, winds and atmospheres of early type stars, and EUV plasma diagnostics. Selected manuscripts from this meeting are provided in these Conference Proceedings.

This book tells the story of the catastrophic impact of the giant 10 Km asteroid Chicxulub into the ancient Gulf of Mexico 65.5 million years ago. The book begins with a discussion of the nature of asteroids and the likelihood of future Earth-impacts. The story then turns to the discovery of a global sediment layer attributed to the fallout from the impact and a piecing together of the evidence that revealed a monster crater, buried under the Gulf. Reviewed is the myriad of geological and fossil evidence that suggested the disastrous sequence of events occurring when a "nuclear-like" explosion ripped through the sea, Earth, and atmosphere, thus forming the mega-crater and tsunami. The aftermath of the Chicxulub's event initiated decades and more of major global climate changes including a "Nuclear Winter" of freezing darkness and blistering greenhouse warming. A chapter is dedicated to the science of tsunamis and their model generation, including a portrayal of the globally rampaging Chicxulub waves. The asteroid's global devastation killed off some 70% of animal and plant life including the dinosaurs. The study of an ancient Cambrian fossil bed suggests how "roll of the dice" events can affect the future evolution of life on Earth. We see how Chicxulub's apparent destruction of the dinosaurs, followed by the their replacement with small mammals, altered forever the progress of human evolution. This book presents a fascinating glimpse through the lens of the natural sciences - the geology, climatology, and oceanography, of the effects of an enormous astronomical event.