At the XXIX IAU General Assembly held in Honolulu from 3-14 August 2015, the meetings known as Special Sessions and Joint Discussions were replaced by new 'Focus Meetings'. Astronomy in Focus XXIXA presents the most relevant contributions from the Focus Meetings together with summaries of all the accepted papers and posters. It covers the meetings on the following areas: dynamical problems in extrasolar planet science; astronomical heritage; scholarly publishing in astronomy; statistics and exoplanets; the exploration of small worlds; ground and space astrophysics and heliophysics; laboratory astrophysics; brightness variations of the Sun and Sun-like stars; astronomy for development; and mitigating the threats of light pollution and radio frequency interference. The publications Astronomy in Focus XXIXA (together with its companion, XXIXB), the proceedings of the six main Scientific Symposia and Reports on Astronomy: Commission Legacy Reports, fully cover the XXIX IAU General Assembly.

This book gives an in-depth analysis of the physical phenomena of thrust production by laser radiation, as well as laser propulsion engines, and laser-propelled vehicles. It brings together into a unified context accumulated up-to-date information on laser propulsion research, considering propulsion phenomena, laser propulsion techniques, design of vehicles with laser propulsion engines, and high-power laser systems to provide movement for space vehicles. In particular, the reader will find detailed coverage of: designs of laser propulsion engines, operating as both air-breathing and ramjet engines to launch vehicles into LEOs; Assembly of vehicles whereby laser power from a remote laser is collected and directed into a propulsion engine; and, the laser-adaptive systems that control a laser beam to propel vehicles into orbits by delivering laser power through the Earth's atmosphere. This book is essential reading for researchers and professionals involved in laser propulsion.

Voted the Best Space Book of 2018 by the Space Hipsters The dramatic inside story of the epic search and recovery operation after the Columbia space shuttle disaster. On February 1, 2003, Columbia disintegrated on reentry before the nation's eyes, and all seven astronauts aboard were lost. Author Mike Leinbach, Launch Director of the space shuttle program at NASA's John F. Kennedy Space Center was a key leader in the search and recovery effort as NASA, FEMA, the FBI, the US Forest Service, and dozens more federal, state, and local agencies combed an area of rural east Texas the size of Rhode Island for every piece of the shuttle and her crew they could find. Assisted by hundreds of volunteers, it would become the largest ground search operation in US history. This comprehensive account is told in four parts: Parallel Confusion Courage, Compassion, and Commitment Picking Up the Pieces A Bittersweet Victory For the first time, here is the definitive inside story of the Columbia disaster and recovery and the inspiring message it ultimately holds. In the aftermath of tragedy, people and communities came together to help bring home the remains of the crew and nearly 40 percent of shuttle, an effort that was instrumental in piecing together what happened so the shuttle program could return to flight and complete the International Space Station. Bringing Columbia Home shares the deeply personal stories that emerged as NASA employees looked for lost colleagues and searchers overcame immense physical, logistical, and emotional challenges and worked together to accomplish the impossible. Featuring a foreword and epilogue by astronauts Robert Crippen and Eileen Collins, and dedicated to the astronauts and recovery search persons who lost their lives, this is an incredible, compelling narrative about the best of humanity in the darkest of times and about how a failure at the pinnacle of human achievement became a story of cooperation and hope.

Owing to the increased accuracy requirements in fields such as astrometry and geodesy the general theory of relativity must be taken into account for any mission requiring highly accurate orbit information and for practically all observation and measurement techniques. This book highlights the confluence of Applied Mathematics, Physics and Space Science as seen from Einstein's general theory of relativity and aims to bridge the gap between theoretical and applied domains. The book investigates three distinct areas of general relativity: Exact solutions of the Einstein field equations of gravitation. Dynamics of near-Earth objects and solar system bodies. Relativistic orbitography. This book is an updated and expanded version of the author's PhD thesis which was awarded the International Astronomical Union PhD prize in Division A: Fundamental Astronomy. Included is a new introduction aimed at graduate students of General Relativity and extended discussions and results on topics in post-Newtonian dynamics and general relativistic spacecraft propagation.

This book presents the cold side of the Universe illustrated by the rest-frame, far-infrared emission with Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). The author constructed the largest-ever ALMA sample and dataset, which enables them to identify very faint, rest-frame, far-infrared dust continuums as well as the carbon fine-structure line emission from distant galaxies that have been missed in previous surveys. The observational findings described in this book reveal for the first time where and how much of the star formation, traced by the rest-frame far-infrared emission, is ongoing, from inter-stellar and circum-galactic media to cosmic structures. Moreover, since some of the findings are unexpected and as such challenge the current galaxy formation models, the book provides exciting questions that should be addressed in the next decades.

Cosmology is the study of the origin, size, and evolution of the entire universe. Every culture has developed a cosmology, whether it be based on religious, philosophical, or scientific principles. In this book, the evolution of the scientific understanding of the Universe in Western tradition is traced from the early Greek philosophers to the most modern 21st century view. After a brief introduction to the concept of the scientific method, the first part of the book describes the way in which detailed observations of the Universe, first with the naked eye and later with increasingly complex modern instruments, ultimately led to the development of the "Big Bang" theory. The second part of the book traces the evolution of the Big Bang including the very recent observation that the expansion of the Universe is itself accelerating with time.

This book describes some of the frontier problems of cosmology: our almost total ignorance of what the Universe is made up of, the mystery of its origin and its end. The book starts with a description of the historical events that led to the construction of the Big Bang model together with the stages that transformed the Universe from a very hot place to a very cold one, full with the structures that we observe today. These structures (stars, galaxies, etc.) constitute only 5% of the contents of the Universe. Concerning the remaining 95%, dubbed dark matter and dark energy, we know very little, and we have only indirect evidence of their existence. The text describes the story and the protagonists who showed the need for the existence of this 'missing matter', the observations, and puzzles they had to solve to understand that dark matter was not ordinary matter. The book describes the hunt for dark matter, carried out with instruments operating in space, on the Earth's surface, and in laboratories built in the bowels of the Earth. It also describes dark energy, which manifests itself in the accelerated expansion of the Universe, and appeared only a few billions of years ago. The book discusses why dark energy must exist and what its existence implies, especially for the future and the end of our Universe.

This monograph develops an innovative approach that utilizes the Birman-Schwinger principle from quantum mechanics to investigate stability properties of steady state solutions in galactic dynamics. The opening chapters lay the framework for the main result through detailed treatments of nonrelativistic galactic dynamics and the Vlasov-Poisson system, the Antonov stability estimate, and the period function $T_1$. Then, as the main application, the Birman-Schwinger type principle is used to characterize in which cases the "best constant" in the Antonov stability estimate is attained. The final two chapters consider the relation to the Guo-Lin operator and invariance properties for the Vlasov-Poisson system, respectively. Several appendices are also included that cover necessary background material, such as spherically symmetric models, action-angle variables, relevant function spaces and operators, and some aspects of Kato-Rellich perturbation theory. A Birman-Schwinger Principle in Galactic Dynamics will be of interest to researchers in galactic dynamics, kinetic theory, and various aspects of quantum mechanics, as well as those in related areas of mathematical physics and applied mathematics.

This book provides a guide to engineering successful and reliable products for the NewSpace industry. By discussing both the challenges involved in designing technical artefacts, and the challenges of growing an organisation, the book presents a unique approach to the topic. New Space Systems Engineering explores numerous difficulties encountered when designing a space system from scratch on limited budgets, non-existing processes, and great deal of organizational fluidity and emergence. It combines technical topics related to design, such as system requirements, modular architectures, and system integration, with topics related to organizational design, complexity, systems thinking, design thinking and a model based systems engineering. Its integrated approach mean this book will be of interest to researchers, engineers, investors, and early-stage space companies alike. It will help New Space founders and professionals develop their technologies and business practices, leading to more robust companies and engineering development.

A glass is disordered material like a viscous liquid and behaves mechanically like a solid. A glass is normally formed by supercooling the viscous liquid fast enough to avoid crystallization, and the liquid-glass transition occurs in diverse manners depending on the materials, their history, and the supercooling processes, among other factors. The glass transition in colloids, molecular systems, and polymers is studied worldwide. This book presents a unified theory of the liquid-glass transition on the basis of the two band model from statistical quantum field theory associated with the temperature Green's function method. It is firmly original in its approach and will be of interest to researchers and students specializing in the glass transition across the physical sciences.

Visual Astronomy introduces the basics of observational astronomy, a fundamentally limitless opportunity to learn about the universe with your unaided eyes or with tools such as binoculars, telescopes, or cameras.

Everyone knows that there are things no one can see, for example, the air you're breathing or a black hole, to be more exotic. But not everyone knows that what we can see makes up only 5 percent of the Universe. The rest is totally invisible to us.

The invisible stuff comes in two varieties--dark matter and dark energy. One holds the Universe together while the other tears it apart. What these forces really are has been a mystery for as long as anyone has suspected they were there, but the latest discoveries of experimental physics have brought us closer to that knowledge. Particle physicist Dan Hooper takes his readers, with wit, grace, and a keen knack for explaining the toughest ideas science has to offer, on a quest few would ever have expected: to discover what makes up our dark cosmos.

Structure and Evolution of Single Stars: An introduction is intended for upper-level undergraduates and beginning graduates with a background in physics. Following a brief overview of the background observational material, the basic equations describing the structure and evolution of single stars are derived. The relevant physical processes, which include the equation of state, opacity, nuclear reactions and neutrino losses are then reviewed. Subsequent chapters describe the evolution of low-mass stars from formation to the final white dwarf phase. The final chapter deals with the evolution of massive stars.