The discovery of chemical elements in celestial bodies and the first estimates of the chemical composition of the solar atmosphere were early results of Astrophysics - the subdiscipline of Astronomy that was originally concerned with the general laws of radiation and with spectroscopy. Following the initial quantitative abundance studies by Henry Norris Russell and by Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, a tremendous amount of theoretical, observa tional, laboratory and computational work led to a steadily improving body of knowledge of photospheric abundances - a body of knowledge that served to guide the theory of stellar evolution. Solar abundances determined from photospheric spectra, together with the very similar abundances determined from carbonaceous chondrites (where extensive information on isotopic composition is available as well), are nowadays the reference for all cosmic composition measures. Early astrophysical studies of the solar photospheric composition made use of atmosphere models and atomic data. Consistent abundances derived from different atmospheric layers and from lines of different strength helped to confirm and estab lish both models and atomic data, and eventually led to the now accepted, so-called "absolute" abundance values - which, for practical reasons, however, are usually given relative to the number of hydrogen nuclei.

Living material contains about twenty different sorts of atom combined into a set of relatively simple molecules. Astrobiologists tend to believe that abiotic mater ial will give rise to life in any place where these molecules exist in appreciable abundances and where physical conditions approximate to those occurring here on Earth. We think this popular view is wrong, for it is not the existence of the building blocks of life that is crucial but the exceedingly complicated structures in which they are arranged in living forms. The probability of arriving at biologically significant arrangements is so very small that only by calling on the resources of the whole universe does there seem to be any possibility of life originating, a conclusion that requires life on the Earth to be a minute component of a universal system. Some think that the hugely improbable transition from non-living to living mat ter can be achieved by dividing the transition into many small steps, calling on a so-called 'evolutionary' process to bridge the small steps one by one. This claim turns on semantic arguments which seek to replace the probability for the whole chain by the sum of the individual probabilities of the many steps, instead of by their product. This is an error well known to those bookies who are accustomed to taking bets on the stacking of horse races. But we did not begin our investigation from this point of view.

"Fundamental Astronomy and Solar System Dynamics", a program of invited papers honoring Professor Walter Fricke, who for thirty years has been Director of the Astronomisches Rechen lnstitut in Heidelberg, was held at the Thompson Conference Center of the University of Texas at Austin on Wednesday 27 March 1985 on the occasion of his seventieth birthday and retirement as Director of ARl. Professor Fricke's contributions to astronomy encompass the areas of galactic dynamics, radial velocities, stellar statistics. the fundamental reference system and the constant of precession. Participants were welcomed to the Uni versi ty of Texas by Professor J. Parker Lamb, Chairman of the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics. The presentations ranged from discussions of astrometric problems concerned with the reference system, the constant of precession, major and minor planet observations, planetary ephemerides and lunar and satellite laser ranging, to a study of disc galaxies in massive halos. The program concluded with a review of Professor Fricke's career. The three sessions were chaired by Victor G. Szebehely, Carol A. Williams and Jay H. Lieske. The participants in this meeting, and in the Division on Dynamical Astronomy meeting that followed, were happy that Professor Fricke was able to attend. His presence at these meetings, as well as his thoughtful comments, were greatly appreciated. We are pleased to acknowledge the support of the Center for Space Research, the Department of Astronomy and the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics of the University of Texas at Austin.

This book is the fifth volume under the title Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy (OSA). These OSA Books are intended to cover a large range of fields and themes. In practice, one could say that all aspects of astronomy-related life and environment are considered in the spirit of sharing specific expertise and lessons learned.

This book offers a unique collection of chapters dealing with socio-dynamical aspects of the astronomy (and related space sciences) community: characteristics of organizations, strategies for development, operational techniques, observing practicalities, educational policies, public outreach, publication studies, research communication, evaluation procedures, research indicators, national specificities, contemporary history, and so on.

The experts contributing to this book have done their best to write in a way understandable to readers not necessarily hyperspecialized in astronomy while providing specific detailed information and sometimes enlightening lessons learned sections. The book concludes with an updated bibliography of publications related to socio-astronomy and to the interactions of the astronomy community with the society at large.

This book will be most usefully read by researchers, teachers, editors, publishers, librarians, sociologists of science, research planners and strategists, project managers, public-relations officers, plus those in charge of astronomy-related organizations, as well as by students aiming at a career in astronomy or related space science.

The book includes a CD-ROM containing the visionary and fascinating work of L. Pe ek as a space artist.

"More than anything else, Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy is about change, recording where we've been and how we have evolved, and extrapolating to where we will be in the coming decades." Caty Pilachowski, outgoing President of the AAS"

The successful launch on November 17, 1995 of ESA's Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) by means of an Ariane 4 carrier, has set in motion a true revolution in quantitative infrared astronomy. For the first time since the very successful IRAS mission in 1983, the astronomical community has uninterrupted access to the infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum. The four focal plane instruments on board of ISO ( the camera ISOCAM, the photometerjcamera ISOPHOT, and the short and long wavelength spec trographs ISO-SWS and ISO-LWS), perform very well and live up to the high expectations all of us had at launch. In the spring of 1996, Thijs de Graauw (principal investigator of the SWS) first suggested the idea to organize a conference dedicated to ISO re sults in the area of stars and circumstellar matter, and coined the title ISO 's View on Stellar Evolution. At the first scientific meeting to highlight some of the early ISO results which was held in May of 1996 at ESA's laboratory ESTEC in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, the conference was announced and a preliminary science organizing committee was formed. The conference was held from July 1 to 4, 1997, in conference centre de Leeuwenhorst, Noord wijkerhout, the Netherlands. The conference was opened by the Director of ESA 's Science Programme, Professor R. Bonnet.

This book is the second volume under the title Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy (OSA). These OSA books are intended to cover a large range of fields and themes: in practice, one could say that all aspects of astronomy-related life and environment are considered in the spirit of sharing specific expertise and lessons learned. This book offers a unique collection of chapters dealing with socio-dynamical aspects of the astronomy (and related space sciences) community: characteristics of organizations, operational techniques, strategies for development, conference series, coordination policies, observing practicalities, computing strategies, sociology of large collaborations, publications studies, research indicators, research communication, public outreach, creativity in arts and sciences, and so on. The experts contributing to this book have done their best to write in a way understandable to readers not necessarily hyperspecialized in astronomy while providing specific detailed information and sometimes enlightening 'lessons learned' sections. The book concludes with an updated bibliography of publications related to socio-astronomy and to the interactions of the astronomy community with the society at large. This book will be most usefully read by researchers, teachers, editors, publishers, librarians, sociologists of science, research planners and strategists, project managers, public-relations officers, plus those in charge of astronomy-related organizations, as well as by students aiming at a career in astronomy or related space science.

Lunar Gravimetry: Revealing the Far-Side provides a thorough and detailed discussion of lunar gravity field research and applications, from the initial efforts of the pre-Apollo and Luna eras to the dedicated gravity mapping experiments of the third millennium. Analysis of the spatial variations of the gravity field of the Moon is a key selenodetic element in the understanding of the physics of the Moon's interior. Remarkably, more than forty years after the initial steps in lunar exploration by spacecraft, the global gravity field still remains largely unknown, due to the limitations of standard observations techniques. As such, knowledge of the high-accuracy and high-resolution gravity field is one of the remaining unsolved issues in lunar science.

Volume 18 continues the Reviews in Modern Astronomy with twelve invited reviews and highlight contributions which were presented during the International Scientific Conference of the Astronomical Society on the topic "From Cosmological Structures to the Milky Way," held in Prague, Czech Republic, September 20 to 25, 2004.

The contributions to the meeting published in this volume discuss, among other subjects, X-ray astronomy, cosmology, star formation and the Galactic Centre.

In the book are reported the main results presented at the Third International Workshop on Data Analysis in Astronomy, held at the EUore Majorana Center for Scientific Culture, Erice, Sicily, Italy, on June 20-27,1988. The Workshop was the natural evolution of the two previous ones. The main goal of the first edition (Erice 1984) was to start a scientific interaction between Astronomers and Computer Scientists. Aim of the second (Erice 1986) was to look at the progress in data analysis methods and dedicated hardware technology. Data analysis problems become harder whenever the data are poor in statistics or the signal is weak and embedded in structured background. Experiments collecting data of such a nature require new and non-standard methodologies. Possibilistic approaches could be merged with the statistical ones, in order to formalize all the knowledge used by the scientists to reach conclusions. Moreover, the last decade has been characterized by very fast developments of Intelligent Systems for data analysis (knowledge based systems, ... ) that would be useful to support astronomers in complex decision making. For these reasons, the last edition of the workshop was intended to provide an overview on the state of the art in the data analysis methodologies and tools in the new frontieres of the astrophysics (y-astronomy, neutrino astronomy, gravitational waves, background radiation and extreme cosmic ray energy spectrum). The book is organized in two sections: - Data analysis methods and tools, - New frontieres in astronomy.

Celestial fundamental catalogues are a prerequisite for the determination of absolute positions and motions in space. Presently, positional astrometry is at the watershed between classical fundamental catalogues, based on moving reference stars, and modern catalogues, based on extragalactic reference objects with non-measurable motion. This book addresses the concepts and methods of the respective construction techniques leading to the stellar frame of the FK5 (fifth fundamental catalogue) and to the newly adopted extragalactic radio reference frame, ICRF (international celestial reference frame), with its extension to optical wavelengths by the Hipparcos Catalogue. While principal outlines of meridian circle observations are given, emphasis is put in some detail on the VLBI technique as applied to astrometry, and to the observational techniques used in the Hipparcos mission, including the tie of the originally non-anchored rigid Hipparcos sphere into the ICRF.

It would seem that any specialist in plasma physics studying a medium in which the interaction between particles is as distance-dependent as the inter action between stars and other gravitating masses would assert that the role of collective effects in the dynamics of gravitating systems must be decisive. However, among astronomers this point of view has been recog nized only very recently. So, comparatively recently, serious consideration has been devoted to theories of galactic spiral structure in which the dominant role is played by the orbital properties of individual stars rather than collec tive effects. In this connection we would like to draw the reader's attention to a difference in the scientific traditions of plasma physicists and astrono mers, whereby the former have explained the delay of the onset of controlled thermonuclear fusion by the "intrigues" of collective processes in the plasma, while many a generation of astronomers were calculating star motions, solar and lunar eclipses, and a number of other fine effects for many years ahead by making excellent use of only the laws of Newtonian mechanics. Therefore, for an astronomer, it is perhaps not easy to agree with the fact that the evolution of stellar systems is controlled mainly by collective effects, and the habitual methods of theoretical mechanics III astronomy must make way for the method of self-consistent fields."

The international Workshop on "Data Analysis in Astronomy" was in- tended to give a presentation of experiences that have been acqui- red in data analysis and image processing, developments and appli- cations that are steadly growing up in Astronomy. The quality and the quantity of ground and satellite observations require more so- phisticated data analysis methods and better computational tools. The Workshop has reviewed the present state of the art, explored new methods and discussed a wide range of applications. The topics which have been selected have covered the main fields of interest for data analysis in Astronomy. The Workshop has been focused on the methods used and their significant applications. Results which gave a major contribution to the physical interpre- tation of the data have been stressed in the presentations. Atten- tion has been devoted to the description of operational system for data analysis in astronomy. The success of the meeting has been the results of the coordinated effort of several people from the organizers to those who presen- ted a contribution and/or took part in the discussion. We wish to thank the members of the Workshop scientific committee Prof. M. Ca- paccioli, Prof. G.De Biase, Prof. G.Sedmak, Prof. A.Zichichi and of the local organizing committee Dr.R.Buccheri and Dr. M.C.Macca- rone together with Miss P.Savalli and Dr. A.Gabriele of the E.Majo- rana Center for their support and the unvaluable part in arranging the Workshop.

The first edition of this text was written primarily by one of the present authors (HAS), with a chapter on instrumentation contributed by a second (NLA). The volume was well received, and to keep the text up-to-date a second edition was planned. For this second edition, a third author (WEK) was invited, whose background complemented that of the other two. Each of the authors was assigned several chapters as his primary task while the complete manuscript remained the second ary responsibility of all three. It is hoped that this approach has resulted in a work that is even more thorough than the first edition in covering the basic concepts of infrared spectroscopy. NELSON L. ALPERT WILLIAM E. KEISER HERMAN A. SZYMANSKI v PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION My experience with the many infrared spectroscopy institutes held at Canisius College and many discussions with both beginners and experienced practitioners in infrared spectroscopy have convinced me that there is a need for an introductory text devoted entirely to infrared spectroscopy, a text which can be utilized even by those who approach this study with only a limited background. This volume sprang from that conviction. It is intended for all who wish to use infrared spec troscopy in research - especially chemists doing structural work - in routine control work, in industrial development, or in medical appli cations or those military applications where it is employed as an analytical tool.

Nuclear astrophysics as it stands today is a fascinating science. Even though, compared to other scientific fields, it is a young discipline which has developed only in this century, it has answered many questions concerning the under standing of our cosmos. One of these great achievements was the concept of nucleosynthesis, the creation of the elements in the early universe in interstellar matter and in stars. Nuclear astrophysics has continued, to solve many riddles of the evolution of the myriads of stars in our cosmos. This review volume attempts to provide an overview of the current status of nuclear astrophysics. Special emphasis is given to the interdisciplinary nature of the field: astronomy, nuclear physics, astrophysics and particle physics are equally involved. One basic effort of nuclear astrophysics is the collection of ob servational facts with astronomical methods. Laboratory studies of the nuclear processes involved in various astrophysical scenarios have provided fundamen tal information serving both as input for and test of astrophysical models. The theoretical understanding of nuclear reaction mechanisms is necessary, for example, to extrapolate the experimentally determined reaction rates to the thermonuclear energy range, which is relevant for the nuclear processes in our cosmos. Astrophysical models and calculations allow us to simulate how nuclear processes contribute to driving the evolution of stars, interstellar matter and the whole universe. Finally, elementary particle physics also plays an important role in the field of nuclear astrophysics, for instance through weak interaction processes involving neutrinos."

There have been many developments in the field of light pollution over the last few years, and this second edition of 'Light Pollution - Responses and Remedies' will introduce them in detail. Examples include the appearance of anti-light pollution legislation in various countries, new departures in lighting design, human health implications, and the growing realization among the general public that lighting is not always a good thing. In this title, author Bob Mizon discusses the various ways in which wasted artificial light has damaged the quality of modern life, and suggest solutions. This book is for anyone who has experienced glare, discomfort, or nuisance from poorly directed lights; has wondered why we waste so much money lighting the sky; or anyone who simply wants to see the stars instead of a baleful urban glow. "Light Pollution, 2nd Edition" offers practical and inexpensive solutions to the world-wide problem of wasted artificial light, and emphasizes that light pollution is not just an astronomers' problem, but affects everyone in various ways.

In light of the barrage of popular books on physics and cosmology, one may question the need for another. Here, two books especially come to mind: Steven Weinberg's The First Three Minutes, written 12 years ago, and the recent best-seller ABriefHistory of Time by Stephen Hawking. The two books are complementary. Weinberg-Nobel prize winner/physicist-wrote from the standpoint of an elementary particle physicist with emphasis on the contents of the universe, whereas Hawking wrote more as a general relativist with emphasis on gravity and the geometry of the universe. Neither one, however, presented the complete story. Weinberg did not 13 venture back beyond the time when temperature was higher than 10 K and 32 perhaps as high as 10 K. He gave no explanation for the origin of particles and the singularity or source of the overwhelming radiation energy in our uni verse of one billion photons for each proton. Hawking presents a uni verse that has no boundaries, was not created, and will not be destroyed. The object of this book is to describe my new theory on the creation of our uni verse in a multi-universe cosmos. The new cosmological model eliminates the troublesome singularity-big bang theory and explains for the first time the origin of matter and the overwhelming electromagnetic radiation contained in the universe. My new theory also predicted the existence ofhigh-energy gamma rays, which were recendy detected in powerful bursts.

Man has a great tendency to get lost or to hide, as the case may be, in a jungle of details and in unnecessary complications. Why do anything simply if you can do it complicated? And still, life itself presents a sufficient number of problems to keep us busy. There would seem to be no need to create additional difficulties, just for the fun of it, especially if these self-made difficulties become practically insuperable and if in the end they cause much unhappiness. The morphological mode of thought and of action was conceived to break the vicious hold which the parasitic wild growth of complications exerts on life in all of its phases. Morphological thought and action are likely to be of value in all human activities, once such thought and action have been clearly delineated and fully developed, and once they have been practised by a sufficiently large number of people. Since the morphological method is of the greatest universality, the choice of the field to which one applies it first is not particulary critical. The author intends to write two or three books on the morphology of several large scale problems, which are both of a technical and of a general social nature. The present book is concerned in particular with some implications of morphological thinking in astronomy. We shall above all emphasize the basic character of the morphological approach, and we shall demonstrate its constructive power in a number of specific cases.

Several decades have elapsed since the publication of any similar book in the German language. The lack of such a book has been felt keenly by all friends of astronomy. In our space age, astronomical knowledge arouses public interest more and more. Practical observation at the telescope depends more than anything else on such knowledge. The educational value of such a training is undisputed. On the other hand, the work of the amateur astronomer can also contribute essentially to the work of the professionals. It is from these points of view that this handbook aims to help with versatile advice. At the same time, the book intends to show the wide range of applied astronomy, as it presents itself to the friend of the stars; in mathematical-physical fields, in precision mechanics and optics, and last but not least in the area of social relations. Beyond the circle of amateur astronomers the book is addressed to lecturers, teachers, students and pupils. It wishes to serve them as a guide to "astronomical experiments," which we suggest should be performed in primary and secondary schools, specialist colleges, and extramural courses.

Modern astronomy has been characterized by an enormous growth in data acquisition - from new technologies in telescopes, detectors, and computation. One can now compile catalogs of tens or hundreds of millions of stars or galaxies and databases from satellite-based observations are reaching terabit proportions. This wealth of data gives rise to statistical challenges not previously encountered in astronomy. This book is the result of a workshop held at Pennsylvania State University in August 1991 that brought together leading astronomers and statisticians to consider statistical challenges encountered in modern astronomical research. The chapters have all been thoroughly revised in the light of the discussions at the conference, and some of the lively discussion is recorded here as well.

Although recent works on Galileo's trial have reached new heights of erudition, documentation, and sophistication, they often exhibit inflated complexities, neglect 400 years of historiography, or make little effort to learn from Galileo. This book strives to avoid such lacunae by judiciously comparing and contrasting the two Galileo affairs, that is, the original controversy over the earth's motion ending with his condemnation by the Inquisition in 1633, and the subsequent controversy over the rightness of that condemnation continuing to our day. The book argues that the Copernican Revolution required that the hypothesis of the earth's motion be not only constructively supported with new reasons and evidence, but also critically defended from numerous old and new objections. This defense in turn required not only the destructive refutation, but also the appreciative understanding of those objections in all their strength. A major Galilean accomplishment was to elaborate such a reasoned, critical, and fair-minded defense of Copernicanism. Galileo's trial can be interpreted as a series of ecclesiastic attempts to stop him from so defending Copernicus. And an essential thread of the subsequent controversy has been the emergence of many arguments claiming that his condemnation was right, as well as defenses of Galileo from such criticisms. The book's particular yet overarching thesis is that today the proper defense of Galileo can and should have the reasoned, critical, and fair-minded character which his own defense of Copernicus had.

These words are written on the SOOth anniversary of Columbus' discovery of the New World. Surely the deep-space exploration of other worlds in our Solar System over the past few decades is an event of similar magnitude. Man has traveled far enough to see Spaceship Earth suspended alone in black space. And he has voyaged even farther to marvel at the crescent Earth rising over the Moon's cratered terrain. Instrumented spacecraft have toured the entire Solar System even beyond the ninth planet Pluto. This work of science Morphology of the Rocky Members of the Solar System is an inquiry about our extended home. As with the Darwinian and Copernican paradigms, the nature of our planetary system, as the extended world around us, has great significance for those who ponder the human condition. The deep-space views of our Planet Ocean with its sweeping clouds, and moving oceans and creeping continents must rank as the greatest photograph ever taken. Viewing Spaceship Earth hanging in the vast void is an almost frightening experience. We are so alone! It is easy to understand why so many are attracted to a simpler account of origins, like the allegorical tale of creation written in heroic style (but eschewing math, maps, figures, tables, references, and evidence) in the first eleven chapters of Genesis. This treatise examines the morphology of the six rocky planets and their 27 satellites from a broad perspective.

Nobel Symposium No 31 on The Impact of Space Science on Man kind was held at Spatind, Norway, September 7 - 12, 1975. Twenty seven leading experts from the United States, the U. S. S. R. and Western Europe attended the Symposium. Four main subjects were discussed: The Impact of Space Science, introduced by Profe. ssor Reimar Lust; The Impact of Space Communica tion, ihtroduced by Dr Joseph Charyk; The Impact of Earth Resources Exploration from Space, introduced by Dr William Nordberg; and The Impact of Space Assisted Meteorology, introduced by Dr Robert M White. This book contains edited summaries of the papers presented at the Symposium and summaries of the discussions. The Symposium was financed by the Nobel Foundation through grants from the Tercentenary Foundation of the Bank of Sweden and organized by a special committee appointed by the Norwegian Nobel Institute. Tim Greve Finn Lied Erik Tandberg vii CONTENTS The Impact of Space Science 1 R. Lust The Impact of Space Science on Mankind (Discussion) 13 T. R. Larsen (ed. ) Satellite Communications 25 J. V. Charyk The Impact of Space Communication (Discussion) 57 G. Rosenberg (ed. ) The Impact of Earth Resources Exploration from Space 67 W. Nordberg The Impact of Earth Resources Exploration from Space 79 (Discussion) E. Tandberg (ed. ) The Environmental Satellite: What It Means for Man 91 R. M. White The Impact of Space Assisted Meteorology (Discussion) 111 E. Tandberg (ed.

Sects. 12, 13. 89 sequence and that subgiant and fainter stars in globular clusters have ultraviolet excesses. When dealing with stars whose physical properties are imperfectly under stood, such as in globular cluster stars, we cannot rely too heavily on the empiri cal calibration by the kinds of stars used to define Fig. 5, to determine their true, unreddened U-B, B-V curve. But if by a combination of arguments, principally the reddening in the region of the stars we do known about, we can assign a fairly probable unreddened U-B, B-V curve to a group of stars about which we know little, the argument may be turned around. In this case some information may be gained about the energy envelope of the stars by examining the differences between the normal two-color index curves for the unknown group of stars compared to the known. In general there seem to be two possible causes for different stars defining different normal sequences in the U-B, B-V plane. One, the relative energy distribution in the continuum in the U, B and V photometry bands are different. An example of this is the effect of the Balmer depression in supergiants. This, of course, requires deviation from black body radiation curves for one or both groups of stars. This cause seems to be the dominant effect for very blue, hot stars where the depression of the continuum by absorption lines is at a minimum."