The XVlllth General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union was held in Patras, Greece, from 17-26 August 1982. It was marked by the tragic death of the President of the IAU, Professor M.K.V. Bappu, on August 19, 1982. This sad event, without precedent in the history of the Union, posed serious problems to the organization of the General Assembly, which could only be overcome by the full collaboration of all members, the organizers, and the Executive Committee. A tribute to the memory of Prof. Bappu was paid during a plenary meeting on 23 August 1982. The full texts of the speeches are published in Chapter I of this . volume. The excellent scientific programme in Patras was organized by the Presidents of the 40 IAU Commissions and coordinated by the IAU General Secretary (1979-1982), Professor P.A. Wayman. The local arrangements were taken care of by Professor C. Goudas and his collaborators from the Patras University. Due to the unexpected withdrawal in 1979 of another invitation to host the 1982 IAU General Assembly, the organizers in Greece had less than two years available for the extensive preparations, and our hearty thanks are due to them for their persistent efforts, which made this General Assembly an outstanding success.

The emerging study of technology in space has been shaping human interaction with physical, social, and technological worlds. Drawing upon a wide range of information technology disciplines, this field is now grabbing the attention of many, including computer scientists, anthropologists, and psychologists craving for more on this intriguing new field.""Exploration of Space, Technology, and Spatiality: Interdisciplinary Perspectives"" offers stimulating research currently bridging the areas of space, spatiality, and technology. A must-read for researchers and scholars working at the intersection of physical, social, and technological space, this book provides critical research from leading experts in the space technology domain - an essential resource for any academic collection.

View your favorite constellations anytime, anywhere with the Tiny Planetarium! Bring the mystery and wonder of the night sky to your office or home with this charming miniature constellation projector! This kit includes: - a 3" star projector with a disk including 12 Hellenistic constellations - a 48-page illustrated mini book about the mythology and lore behind each constellation

It is not an exaggeration to say that one of the most exciting predictions of Einstein's theory of gravitation is that there may exist "black holes" putative objects whose gravitational fields are so strong that no physical bodies or signals can break free of their pull and escape. The proof that black holes do exist, and an analysis of their properties, would have a significance going far beyond astrophysics. Indeed, what is involved is not just the discovery of yet another even if extremely remarkable, astro physical object, but a test of the correctness of our understanding of the properties of space and time in extremely strong gravitational fields. Theoretical research into the properties of black holes, and into the possible corol laries of the hypothesis that they exist, has been carried out with special vigor since the beginning of the 1970's. In addition to those specific features of black holes that are important for the interpretation of their possible astrophysical manifestations, the theory has revealed a number of unexpected characteristics of physical interactions involving black holes. By the middle of the 1980's a fairly detailed understanding had been achieved of the properties of the black holes, their possible astrophysical manifestations, and the specifics of the various physical processes involved. Even though a completely reliable detection of a black hole had not yet been made at that time, several objects among those scrutinized by astrophysicists were considered as strong candidates to be confirmed as being black holes."

This thesis explores the possibility of searching for new effects of dark matter that are linear in g, an approach that offers enormous advantages over conventional schemes, since the interaction constant g is very small, g<<1. Further, the thesis employs an investigation of linear effects to derive new limits on certain interactions of dark matter with ordinary matter that improve on previous limits by up to 15 orders of magnitude. The first-ever limits on several other interactions are also derived. Astrophysical observations indicate that there is five times more dark matter-an 'invisible' form of matter, the identity and properties of which still remain shrouded in mystery-in the Universe than the ordinary 'visible' matter that makes up stars, planets, dust and interstellar gases. Conventional schemes for the direct detection of dark matter involve processes (such as collisions with, absorption by or inter-conversion with ordinary matter) that are either quartic (g4) or quadratic (g2) in an underlying interaction constant g.

Intended for nonspecialists with some knowledge of physics or engineering, The Quantum Beat covers a wide range of salient topics relevant to atomic clocks, treated in a broad intuitive manner with a minimum of mathematical formalism. Detailed descriptions are given of the design principles of the rubidium, cesium, hydrogen maser, and mercury ion standards; the revolutionary changes that the advent of the laser has made possible, such as laser cooling, optical pumping, the formation of optical molasses, and the cesium fountain standard; and the time-based global navigation systems, Loran-C and the Global Positioning System. Also included are topics that bear on the precision and absolute accuracy of standards, such as noise, resonance line shape, the relativistic Doppler effect as well as more general relativistic notions of time relevant to synchronization of remote clocks, and time reversal symmetry. the development of atomic clocks in the first edition, but brings up to date the extraordinary developments in recent years, culminating in clocks based on quantum resonance at optical frequency in individual ions confined in miniature electromagnetic traps. These, together with advances in the generation of wide-band coherent frequency combs spanning the spectrum as far as the optical range, has made possible the direct measurement of phenomena occurring at optical frequencies As a result of these recent advances, in addition to the time-based GPS and LORAN C navigation systems treated in the first edition, other important applications of a fundamental scientific interest have become feasible. These include satellite-borne tests of the theory of general relativity and the equivalence principle on which it is based.

This volume, together with its two companion volumes, originated in a study commis sioned by the United States National Academy of Sciences on behalf of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. A committee composed of Tom Holzer, Dimitri Mihalas, Roger Ulrich and myself was asked to prepare a comprehensive review of current knowledge concerning the physics of the Sun. We were fortunate in being able to persuade many distinguished scientists to gather their forces for the preparation of 21 separate chapters covering not only solar physics but also relevant areas of astrophysics and solar-terrestrial relations. It proved necessary to divide the chapters into three separate volumes that cover three different aspects of solar physics. Volumes II and III are concerned with 'The Solar Atmosphere' and with 'Astrophysics and Solar-Terrestrial Relations'. This volume is devoted to 'The Solar Interior', except that the volume begins with one chapter reviewing the contents of all three volumes. Our study of the solar interior includes a review of nuclear, atomic, radiative, hydrodynamic and hydromagnetic processes, together with reviews of three areas of active current investigation: the dynamo mechanism, internal rotation and magnetic fields, and oscillations. The last topic, in particular, has emerged in recent years as one of the most exciting areas of solar research."

This volume presents the edited lecture notes of the First JETSET School on Jets from Young Stars: Models and Constraints, held by the Marie Curie Research and Training Network on JET Simulations, Experiments and Theory. The first half of the book is devoted to general observational constraints. The second section is devoted to theoretical knowledge of magneto-hydrodynamic processes pertinent to the jet launching mechanism in young stars.

The imaging process in stellar interferometers is explained starting from first principles on wave propagation and diffraction. Wave propagation through turbulence is described in detail using Kolmogorov statistics. The impact of turbulence on the imaging process is discussed both for single telescopes and for interferometers. Correction methods (adaptive optics and fringe tracking) are presented including wavefront sensing/fringe sensing methods and closed loop operation. Instrumental techniques like beam combination and visibility measurements (modulus and phase) as well as Nulling and heterodyne interferometry are described. The book closes with examples of observing programmes linking the theory with individual astrophysical programmes.

This book contains the expanded lecture notes of the 32nd Saas-Fee Advanced Course. The three contributions present the central themes in modern research on the cold universe, ranging from cold objects at large distances to the physics of dust in cold clouds.

Since the publication of The New Science of Astrobiology in the year 2001 the first edition of the present book two significant events have taken place raising the subject from the beginning of the present century to its present maturity. Firstly, in 2001 the Galileo Mission still had two years to complete its task, which turned out to be an outstanding survey of the Jovian system, especially of its intriguing satellite Europa. Secondly, the Cassini Huygens Mission was still on its way to Saturn. Its present success has surpassed all expectations of ESA and NASA. Astrobiologists still did not know that Titan was the fifth body in the Solar System that possibly contained a water ocean (including the Earth and the three Galilean satellites other than Io). For these reasons the book includes overviews of the evolutionary and molecular biology that are necessary. There is a discussion of other sectors of culture that are the natural frontiers of astrobiology, especially the humanities."

Astrophysics is facing challenging aims such as deep cosmology at redshift higher than 10 to constrain cosmology models, or the detection of exoplanets, and possibly terrestrial exoplanets, and several others. It requires unprecedented ambitious R&D programs, which have definitely to rely on a tight cooperation between astrophysics and optics communities. The book addresses most of the most critical interdisciplinary domains where they interact, or where they will do. A first need is to collect more light, i.e. telescopes still larger than the current 8-10 meter class ones. Decametric, and even hectometric, optical (from UV to IR wavelengths) telescopes are being studied. Whereas up to now the light collecting surface of new telescopes was approximately 4 times that of the previous generation, now this factor is growing to 10 to 100. This quantum leap urges to implement new methods or technologies developed in the optics community, both in academic labs and in the industry. Given the astrophysical goals and technological constraints, new generation adaptive optics with a huge number of actuators and laser guide stars devices have to be developed, from theoretical bases to experimental works. Two other newcomers in observational astrophysics are interferometric arrays of optical telescopes and gravitational wave detectors. Up-to-date reviews of detectors and of spectrographs are given, as well as forefront R&D in the field of optical coatings and of guided optics. Possible new ways to handle photons are also addressed, based on quantum physics. More and more signal processing algorithms are a part and parcel of any modern instrumentation. Thus finally the book gives two reviews about wavefront processing and about image restoration and deconvolution algorithms for ill conditioned cases.

This NATO Advanced Study Institute course provided an updated understanding, from a fundamental and deep point of view, of the progress and current problems in the early universe, cosmic microwave background radiation, large-scale struc ture, dark matter problem, and the interplay between them. Emphasis was placed on the mutual impact of fundamental physics and cosmology, both at the theo retical and experimental or observational levels, within a deep and well defined programme, and a global unifying view, which, in addition, provides of careful inter-disciplinarity. In addition, each course of this series introduced and promoted topics or sub jects which, although not of a purely astrophysical or cosmological nature, were of relevant physical interest for astrophysics and cosmology. Deep understanding, clarification, synthesis, and careful interdisciplinarity within a fundamental physics framework, were the main goals of the course. Lectures ranged from a motivation and pedagogical introduction for students and participants not directly working in the field to the latest developments and most recent results. All lectures were plenary, had the same duration, and were followed by a discus sion. The course brought together experimentalists and theoreticans physicists, astro physicists and astronomers from a wide variety of backgrounds, including young scientists at the post-doctoral level, senior scientists and advanced graduate stu dents as well."

With exoplanets being discovered daily, Earth is still the only planet we know of that is home to creatures who seek a coherent explanation for the structure, origins, and fate of the universe, and of humanity s place within it. Today, science and religion are the two major cultural entities on our planet that share this goal of coherent understanding, though their interpretation of evidence differs dramatically. Many scientists look at the known universe and conclude we are here by chance. The renowned astronomer and historian of science Owen Gingerich looks at the same evidence along with the fact that the universe is comprehensible to our minds and sees it as proof for the planning and intentions of a Creator-God. He believes that the idea of a universe without God is an oxymoron, a self-contradiction. God s Planet" exposes the fallacy in thinking that science and religion can be kept apart.

Gingerich frames his argument around three questions: Was Copernicus right, in dethroning Earth from its place at the center of the universe? Was Darwin right, in placing humans securely in an evolving animal kingdom? And was Hoyle right, in identifying physical constants in nature that seem singularly tuned to allow the existence of intelligent life on planet Earth? Using these episodes from the history of science, Gingerich demonstrates that cultural attitudes, including religious or antireligious beliefs, play a significant role in what passes as scientific understanding. The more rigorous science becomes over time, the more clearly God s handiwork can be comprehended."

The study of planet formation has been revolutionized by recent observational breakthroughs, which have allowed the detection and characterization of extrasolar planets, the imaging of protoplanetary disks, and the discovery of the Solar System's Kuiper Belt. Written for beginning graduate students, this textbook provides a basic understanding of the astrophysical processes that shape the formation of planetary systems. It begins by describing the structure and evolution of protoplanetary disks, moves on to the formation of planetesimals, terrestrial and gas giant planets, and concludes by surveying new theoretical ideas for the early evolution of planetary systems. Covering all phases of planet formation - from protoplanetary disks to the dynamical evolution of planetary systems - this introduction can be understood by readers with backgrounds in planetary science, and observational and theoretical astronomy. It highlights the physical principles underlying planet formation and the areas where more research and new observations are needed.

The book summarizes international progress over the last few decades in upper atmosphere airglow research. Measurement methods, theoretical concepts and empirical models of a wide spectrum of upper atmospheric emissions and their variability are considered. The book contains a detailed bibliography of studies related to the upper atmosphere airglow. Readers will also benefit from a lot of useful information on emission characteristics and its formation processes found the book.

Neutron stars are the densest observable bodies in our universe. Born during the gravitational collapse of luminous stars - a birth heralded by spectacular supernova explosions - they open a window on a world where the state of the matter and the strengths of the fields are anything but ordinary. This book is a collection of pedagogical lectures on the theory of neutron stars, and especially their interiors, at the forefront of current research. It addresses graduate students and researchers alike, and should be particularly suitable as a text bridging the gap between standard textbook material and the research literature.

Our knowledge of the distribution and properties of the small solid particles within the solar system continues to improve rapidly. Much of the progress is due to observations from spacecraft which offer completely new locations from which to view phenomena such as the zodiacal light. In combination with ground-based observations and improved theoretical models, a picture now emerges with a clarity un attainable even a few years ago. The need for a survey of the situation was recognized in 1976 and, at meetings of COSPAR and the International Astronomical Union in that year, planning began for a symposium to be held in 1979 at a time and place convenient for those attending the IAU General Assembly in Montreal. The result was IAU Symposium No. 90, "Solid Particles in the Solar System," held at the University of Ottawa, from August 27 to 30, 1979. This volume includes eleven invited papers intended to survey par ticular areas of the overall subject and numerous contributed papers providing more detail on specific problems. We hope the combination will prove valuable to both the general reader interested in the current picture of the particles in interplanetary space and also to the specialist involved in research in the field."

Solar and geomagnetic variability are of considerable interest for scientists of many different persuasions and indeed one has the distinct impression that for the sun at least, there is direct relevance for mankind in general as the interrelation between solar and terrestrial phenomena is starting to be appreciated. From the vast time scale of interest in the variability field, attention was confined to the last 10,000 years in a NATO Advanced Research Workshop held from April 6 - 10, 1987 in Durham, England, and the present publication comprises the lectures given there. Such a Workshop was very timely in view of the impressive new data available from 14C analysis in dated tree rings and lOBe in polar ice cores, from natural palaeomagnetic records in lacustrine sediments and from archaeomagnetic material. Also to be mentioned are new studies of historical accounts of naked-eye sunspots and aurorae. All the data have contributed to improvements in under standing the relative variations of solar properties, the geomagnetic field and climate and it is hoped that this volume will convey the flavour of these advances in knowledge. A feature of the Workshop was the lively discussions which followed so many of the papers. There were several instances of healthy disagreement and this is reflected in the opposing views presented inanumber of the papers published here."

For many astronomers, Adaptive Optics is something like a dream coming true. Sinee 1609 and the first observations of celestial bodies performed with the help of an optieal teleseope, astronomers have always fighted to improve the 'resolving power' of their instruments. For a long time, engineers have trimmed the optieal quality of the teleseopes, until they finally reaehed the barrier set by the atmospherie turbulence, a few seconds of are. At that point, the intrinsic quality of the site beeame a major issue to establish new observatories with modern telescopes, and astronomers started to desert the urban skies and to migrate toward mountains and deserts. This quest has been sueeessful and a few privileged sites, where the average natural 'seeing' is close to 0. 5," are now hosting clusters of giant telescopes of the 4 m and soon 10 m class. Yet, this atmospherie limit corresponds in the visible wavelength range to the diffraetion limit of a 20 em telescope only. The loss was severe: a faetor 20 in angular and several hundred in peak energy eoncentration, i. e. in deteetivity of resolution very faint objeets. In the beginning of the seventies, two doors half opened to provide a way out of this dead-end. First, the technique of speckle interferometry (and its various related developments) has allowed to restore the diffraetion limit of large telescopes at visible and infrared wavelengths (see, e. g.

The variability of the Sun is well established, as well as that of the Earth's climate. To what extent the two are connected, in the sense that solar variability drives climate, is the subject of considerable research and, in some cases, controversy. After an earlier workshop at the International Space Science Institute (ISS!) on Solar Composition and its Evolution, two ofthe participants came up with the idea to initiate a similar project on the topic of Solar Variability and Climate, a work shop aimed at obtaining an overview of the current knowledge of the variability of the Sun and of the Earth's Climate, and of their possible connections. A further, equally important objective was the strengthening of the interaction between the two, often diverse communities of solar physicists and climatologists. ISSI took up this idea and invited six convenors, E. Friis-Christensen, C. Froh lich, J. Haigh, J. Hansen, M. Schussler, and S. Solanki, who subsequently formu lated the aims and goals of the workshop, nominated a list of invitees, drafted a programme of introductory talks, and structured the workshop into three sections. For each section there was a concluding discussion session moderated by two co chairs. Moreover, there was a number of contributed poster papers for which there were two viewing sessions. The main intent of this format was to leave ample time for open, informal discussions, which is one of the principal aims of ISSI.

The workshop on The Cosmology of Extra Dimensions and Varying Fundamental Constants, which was part of JENAM 2002, was held at the Physics Department of the University of Porto (FCUP) from the 3rd to the 5th of September 2002. It was regularly attended by about 110 participants, of which 65 were officially registered in the VFC workshop, while the others came from the rest of the JENAM workshops. There were also a few science correspondents from the national and international press. During the 3 days of the scientific programme, 8 Invited Reviews and 30 Oral Communications were presented. The speakers came from 11 different European countries, and also from Argentina, Australia, Canada, Japan and the U.S.A. There were also speakers from six Portuguese research institutions, and nine of the speak ers were Ph.D. students. The contributions are presented in these proceedings in chronological order. The workshop brought together string theorists, particle physicists, theoretical and observational cosmologists, relativists and observational astrophysicists. It was generally agreed that this inter-disciplinarity was the greatest strength of the work shop, since it provided people coming into this very recent topic from the various different backgrounds with an opportunity to understand each other's language and thereby gain a more solid understanding of the overall picture."

A personal account of the evolution of millimeter-wave astronomy at the US National Radio Astronomy Observatory. The author recounts the behind-the-scenes activities of the staff from the beginnings at Kitt Peak to the closing of the Tuscon offices.

The mono graph contains 8 chapters, and their contents cover all principal aspects of the problem: 1. Introduction and brief his tory ofthe radiation problem and background information ofradiation hazard in the near-Earth and interplanetary space. 2. General description of radiation conditions and main sources of charged partic1es in the Earth's environment and interplanetary space, effects of space environment on spacecraft. 3. Basic information about physical conditions in space and main sources of charged particles in the Earth's environment and interplanetary space, in the context of "Space W eather" monitoring and prediction. 4. Trapped radiation belts of the Earth (ERB): theory of their origin, spatial and temporal dynamics, and experimental and statistical models. 5. Galactic cosmic rays (GCR): variations of energetic, temporal and spatial characteristics, long-term modulation, and anomalous cosmic ray (ACR) component, modeling oftheir dynamics. 6. Production of energetic particles (SEPs) at/ne ar the Sun: available databases, acceleration, propagation, and prediction of individual SEP event, statistical models of solar cosmic rays (SCR). 7. Existing empirical techniques of estimating, prediction and modeling of radiation hazard, methodical approaches and constraints, some questions of changes in the Earth's radiation environment due to changes of the solar activity level. 8. Unresolved problems of radiation hazard prediction and spacecraft protection, radiation experiments on board the spacecraft, estimating of radiation conditions during interplanetary missions. Space does not allow us to explain every time the solar-terrestrial and radiation physics nomencIature used in current English-language literature.

Solar-Terrestrial Physics: The Study of Mankind's Newest Frontier Solar-Terrestrial Physics (STP) has been around for 100 years. However, it only became known as a scientific discipline under that name when the physical domain studied by STP became accessible to in situ observation and measurement by man or man-made instruments. Indeed, it was STP that provided the initial scientific driving force for the launching of man-made devices into extra-terrestrial space during the International Geophysical Year - aided of course by the genetically engrained drive of humans to expand their frontiers of knowledge, influence and dominance. We may define STP as the discipline dealing with the variable components of solar corpuscular and electromagnetic emissions, the physical processes governing their sources and their propagation through interplanetary space, and the physical-chemical processes related to their interaction with the Earth and other bodies in interplanetary space. Much of STP deals with fully-or partially-ionized gas flows and related energy, momentum and mass transfer in what now appears as one single system made up of distinct but strongly interacting parts, reaching from the photosphere out to the confines of the heliopause, engulfing planets and other solar system bodies, and dipping deep into 6 the Earth's atmosphere.