Integrating both scientific and philosophical perspectives, this book provides an informed analysis of the challenges of formulating a universal theory of life. Among the issues discussed are crucial differences between definitions and scientific theories and, in the context of examples from the history of science, how successful general theories develop. The central problem discussed is two-fold: first, our understanding of life is still tacitly wedded to an antiquated Aristotelian framework for biology; and second, there are compelling reasons for considering that familiar Earth life, which descends from a last universal common ancestor, is unrepresentative. What is needed are examples of life as we don't know it. Potential sources are evaluated, including artificial life, extraterrestrial life, and a shadow biosphere right here on Earth, and a novel strategy for searching for unfamiliar life in the absence of a definition or general theory is developed. The book is a valuable resource for graduate students and researchers studying the nature, origins, and extent of life in the universe.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE ROYAL SOCIETY SCIENCE BOOK PRIZE 2021 FINALIST FOR THE PEN/E.O. WILSON LITERARY SCIENCE WRITING AWARD AN AMAZON BEST BOOK OF 2020 To be an astronomer is to journey to some of the most inaccessible parts of the globe, braving mountain passes, sub-zero temperatures, and hostile flora and fauna. Not to mention the stress of handling equipment worth millions. It is a life of unique delights and absurdities ... and one that may be drawing to a close. Since Galileo first pointed his telescope at the heavens, astronomy has stood as a fount of human creativity and discovery, but soon it will be the robots gazing at the sky while we are left to sift through the data. In The Last Stargazers, Emily Levesque reveals the hidden world of the professional astronomer. She celebrates an era of ingenuity and curiosity, and asks us to think twice before we cast aside our sense of wonder at the universe.

The luminosity of the sun governs the temperature of the planets. And the solar forcing, or driving, of climate, primarily due to changes insolar radiation, is an idea whose history has not been well documented in a book. Recent satellite measurements have shown that solar radiation varies as a function of wavelength - a concept that for the past two centuries scientists have claimed would be proved. Now, with all of the attention being given to global warming, this topic has again become timely. The book will review the physics of the concept of solar forcing in manageable terms, tracing its history from its beginnings in the early 1800s toits apparent success in the 1920s, to its near demise in the 1950s and its resurrection in recent years. Emphasis will be on solar variation as a driver for climate change, with only a brief discussion of other mechanisms - thus assuring the book a clear focus.

The articles in this volume are a document of the Galileo mission to Jupiter. The Mission Overview is the first article; the second is a description of the design of the very complex spacecraft trajectory in relation to the scientific objects. Subsequent articles describe the various investigations planned by the scientific groups. These are divided in three groups: the Probe, the Magnetospheric Experiments, and the Remote Sensing and Radio Investigations.

This book covers solar energy and the use of solar radiation in connection with lighting. It provides a detailed introduction to solar energy, photovoltaic (PV) solar energy conversion, and solar lighting technologies, while also discussing all of these elements in the context of the Balkan Peninsula. In the context of solar energy, the book covers a range of elements, from the structure of the sun, to PV solar plants. It subsequently addresses the status quo of solar technologies in Bulgaria, Serbia and the Republika Srpska and analyses the development of these technologies over the years, including their economic status, and how these aspects have shaped their current status. Undergraduate and graduate students, researchers and professionals, particularly those based in the Balkans, will find this book both informative and interesting.

Magnetic energy release plays an important role in a wide variety of cosmic objects such as the Sun, stellar coronae, stellar and galactic accretion disks and pulsars. The observed radio, X-ray and gamma-ray emission often directly results from magnetic flares', implying that these processes are spatially fragmented and of an impulsive nature. A true understanding of these processes requires a combined magnetohydrodynamical and plasma physical approach. Fragmented Energy Release in Sun and Stars: the Interface between MHD and Plasma Physics provides a comprehensive, interdisciplinary summary of magnetic energy release in the Sun and stars, in accretion disks, in pulsar magnetospheres and in laboratory plasmas. These proceedings include papers on both theoretical and observational aspects. Fragmented Energy Release in Sun and Stars: the Interface between MHD and Plasma Physics is for researchers in the fields of solar physics, stellar astrophysics and (laboratory) plasma physics and is a useful resource book for graduate level astrophysics courses.

Novel instruments for high-precision imaging polarimetry have opened new possibilities, not only for diagnostics of magnetic fields, but also for exploring effects in radiative scattering, atomic physics, spectral line formation and radiative transfer. The observational advances have stimulated various theoretical developments, for instance in vector radiative transfer and techniques for inverting polarized line profiles. The present volume gives a comprehensive and up-to-date account of this rapidly evolving and interdisciplinary field of science. It is based on the oral presentations given at the 2nd International Workshop on Solar Polarization held in Bangalore, India, in October 1998.

Analysis of the orbital motion of the Earth, the Moon and other planets and their satellites led to the discovery that all bodies in the Solar System are moving with the first cosmic velocity of their proto parents. The mean orbital velocity of each planet is equal to the first cosmic velocity of the Protosun, the radius of which is equal to the semi-major axis of the planet s orbit. The same applies for the planets satellites. All the small planets, comets, other bodies and the Sun itself follow this law, a finding that has also been proven by astronomical observations. The theoretical solutions based on the Jacobi dynamics explain the process of the system creation and decay, as well as the nature of Kepler s laws.

This book views Mercury as a whole in the context of its environment. It illustrates what we know and what we need to know, and why understanding Mercury is so crucial to our understanding of solar system origin and current processes on Earth. The book describes our current state of knowledge for Mercury and interactions between interior, exterior, and space environment which are highly dynamic and thus critical to understanding Mercury as a system.

In the early years of the twentieth century, Victor Hess of Germany flew instruments in balloons and so discovered in 1912 that an extra- errestial radiation of unknown origin is incident on the earth with an almost constant intensity at all times. These penetrating non solar radiations which were called Cosmic Rays by Millikan, USA, opened the new frontier of space physics and many leading scientists were attracted to it. At the end of World War II a number of space vehicles, e.g. stratospheric balloons, rockets and satellites were developed. In 1950 and onwards, these vehicles enabled spectacular advances in space physics and space astrophysics. New horizons were opened in the explorations of cosmic rays, the earth's magnetosphere, the Sun and the heliosphere, the moon and the planets. Using space-borne instruments, exciting discoveries were made of stars, and galaxies in the infra-red, ultra violet, x-ray and gamma-ray wavelengths. In this text book these fascinating new findings are presented in depth and on a level suitable for senior undergraduate and graduate students, research scientists and scientists of other disciplines. Although there are several excellent books and monographs on different aspects, most of these deal with specific areas. In this text book the findings of space physics and astrophysics are presented in an integrated manner with proper introductions to the fundamental aspects, and these are supplemented by relevant ground based observations."

Astrobiology not only investigates how early life took hold of our planet but also life on other planets - both in our Solar System and beyond - and their potential for habitability. The book take readers from the scars on planetary surfaces made by space rocks to the history of the Solar System narrated by those space rocks as well as exoplanets in other planetary systems. But the true question is how life arose here or elsewhere. Modern comparative genomics has revealed that Darwin was correct; a set of highly conserved genes and cellular functions indicate that all life is related by common ancestry. The Last Universal Common Ancestor or LUCA sits at the base of the Tree of Life. However, once that life took hold, it started to diversify and form complex microbial communities that are known as microbial mats and stromatolites. Due to their long evolutionary history and abundance on modern Earth, research on the biological, chemical and geological processes of stromatolite formation has provided important insights into the field of astrobiology. Many of these microbialite-containing ecosystems have been used as models for astrobiology, and NASA mission analogs including Shark Bay, Pavilion and Kelly Lakes. Modern microbialites represent natural laboratories to study primordial ecosystems and provide proxies for how life could evolve on other planets. However, few viral metagenomic studies (i.e., viromes) have been conducted in microbialites, which are not only an important part of the community but also mirror its biodiversity. This book focuses on particularly interesting sites such as Andean lake microbialites, a proxy of early life since they are characterized by very high UV light, while Alchichica and Bacalar lakes are characterized by high-salt and oligotrophic waters that nurture stromatolites. However, it is only the oasis of Cuatro Cienegas Basin in Mexico that stored past life in its marine sediments of the Sierra de San Marcos. This particular Sierra has a magmatic pouch that moves the deep aquifer to the surface in a cycle of sun drenched life and back to the depths of the magmatic life in an ancient cycle that now is broken by the overexploitation of the surface water as well as the deep aquifer in order to irrigate alfalfa in the desert. The anthropocene, the era of human folly, is killing this unique time machine and with it the memory of the planet.

The COSPAR Colloquium on Solar-Terrestrial Magnetic Activity and Space Environment (STMASE) was held in the National Astronomy Observatories of Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC) in Beijing, China in September 10-12, 2001. The meeting was focused on five areas of the solar-terrestrial magnetic activity and space environment studies, including study on solar surface magnetism; solar magnetic activity, dynamical response of the heliosphere; space weather prediction; and space environment exploration and monitoring. A hot topic of space research, CMEs, which are widely believed to be the most important phenomenon of the space environment, is discussed in many papers. Other papers show results of observational and theoretical studies toward better understanding of the complicated image of the magnetic coupling between the Sun and the Earth, although little is still known little its physical background. Space weather prediction, which is very important for a modern society expanding into out-space, is another hot topic of space research. However, a long way is still to go to predict exactly when and where a disaster will happen in the space. In that sense, there is much to do for space environment exploration and monitoring. The manuscripts submitted to this Monograph are divided into the following parts: (1) solar surface magnetism, (2) solar magnetic activity, (3) dynamical response of the heliosphere, (4) space environment exploration and monitoring; and (5) space weather prediction. Papers presented in this meeting but not submitted to this Monograph are listed by title as unpublished papers at the end of this book.

For over 35 years, radio astronomical techniques have made an impressive series of advances in our understanding of solar phenomena. However, although the subject has been partially discussed in "Paris Symposium on Radio Astronomy" in 1958, NASA-GSFC Symposium on "Physics of Solar Flares" in 1963, and the lAU Symposium No. 57 on "Coronal Disturbances" in 1973, there has not been a major international meeting dedicated to "Radio Physics of the Sun." This is the first major symposium on the subject held under the auspices of the International Astronomical Union. It was jointly spon sored by lAU Commission 40, Radio Astronomy, and by lAU Commission 10, Solar Activity. It was also sponsored by the Solar Physics Division of the American Astronomical Society. Thig volume contains the proceedings of this meeting, lAU Symposium No. 86 on "Radio Physics of the Sun" that was held in College Park, Maryland, August 7-10, 1979. The Scientific Organizing Committee of the Symposium consisted of M. R. Kundu (chairman), G. A. Dulk, O. Hachenberg, M. Kuperus, D. J. McLean, D. Melrose, M. Pick, J. L. Steinberg, T. Takakura, A. Tlamicha and V. V. Zheleznyakov. The topics and speakers were chosen in order to emphasize the current observational material with particular reference to centi meter wavelength observations of a few arc-second resolution, fast two-dimensional pictures of the sun at meter-decameter wavelengths and the recent advances in plasma and radiation theory."

Traditionally, solar and stellar physics have been two separate branches of astronomy, which independently of each other have developed their own scientific goals and methods. During the last decade, however, we have witnessed a gradual convergence of these two areas: The solar physicists realize more and more that the sun has to be seen as a special case in a large family of stars of various properties. A more complete understanding of the sun can only be achieved by considering it in this broader context. The stellar physicists on the other hand have become aware that the detailed knowledge of the physical processes that the solar physicists have reached has a more general significance and can be applied to a variety of other astrophysical objects. Observational techniques developed in solar work can frequently be adapted for other stars as well. This unified approach to solar and stellar physics is often called the "solar-stellar connection". One main goal of this approach has been to understand the general nature and causes of stellar activity. The pioneering and visionary program to search for activity cycles on other stars started by Olin Wilson at the Mount Wilson Observatory 16 years ago has born fruit: in his sample of 91 stars, cyclic behaviour similar to that of the sun is found to be quite common, but many stars also show irregular activity fluctua.tions of large amplitude.

This book provides a systematic introduction to the observation and application of kinetic Alfven waves (KAWs) in various plasma environments, with a special focus on the solar-terrestrial coupling system. Alfven waves are low-frequency and long-wavelength fluctuations that pervade laboratory, space and cosmic plasmas. KAWs are dispersive Alfven waves with a short wavelength comparable to particle kinematic scales and hence can play important roles in the energization and transport of plasma particles, the formation of fine magneto-plasma structures, and the dissipation of turbulent Alfven waves. Since the 1990s, experimental studies on KAWs in laboratory and space plasmas have significantly advanced our understanding of KAWs, making them an increasingly interesting subject. Without a doubt, the solar-terrestrial coupling system provides us with a unique natural laboratory for the comprehensive study of KAWs. This book presents extensive observations of KAWs in solar and heliospheric plasmas, as well as numerous applications of KAWs in the solar-terrestrial coupling system, including solar atmosphere heating, solarwind turbulence, solar wind-magnetosphere interactions, and magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling. In addition, for the sake of consistency, the book includes the basic theories and physical properties of KAWs, as well as their experimental demonstrations in laboratory plasmas. In closing, it discusses possible applications of KAWs to other astrophysical plasmas. Accordingly, the book covers all the major aspects of KAWs in a coherent manner that will appeal to advanced graduate students and researchers whose work involves laboratory, space and astrophysical plasmas.

This book presents two important new findings. First, it demonstrates from first principles that turbulent heating offers an explanation for the non-adiabatic decay of proton temperature in solar wind. Until now, this was only proved with reduced or phenomenological models. Second, the book demonstrates that the two types of anisotropy of turbulent fluctuations that are observed in solar wind at 1AU originate not only from two distinct classes of conditions near the Sun but also from the imbalance in Alfven wave populations. These anisotropies do not affect the overall turbulent heating if we take into account the relation observed in solar wind between anisotropy and Alfven wave imbalance. In terms of the methods used to obtain these achievements, the author shows the need to find a very delicate balance between turbulent decay and expansion losses, so as to directly solve the magnetohydrodynamic equations, including the wind expansion effects.

Dynamic compression is an experimental technique with interdisciplinary uses, ranging from enabling the creation of ultracondensed matter under previously impossible conditions to understanding the likely cause of unusual planetary magnetic fields. Readers can now gain an intuitive understanding of dynamic compression; clear and authoritative chapters examine its history and experimental method, as well as key topics including dynamic compression of liquid hydrogen, rare gas fluids and shock-induced opacity. Through an up-to-date history of dynamic compression research, Nellis also clearly shows how dynamic compression addresses and will continue to address major unanswered questions across the scientific disciplines. The past and future role of dynamic compression in studying and making materials at extreme conditions of pressure, density and temperature is made clear, and the means of doing so are explained in practical language perfectly suited for researchers and graduate students alike.

The last decade of this century has seen a renewed interest in the dynamics and physics of the small bodies of the Solar System, Asteroids, Comets and Meteors. New observational evidences such as the discovery of the Edgeworth-Kuiper belt, refined numerical tools such as the symplectic integrators, analytical tools such as semi-numerical perturbation algorithms and in general a better understanding of the dynamics of Hamiltonian systems, all these factors have converged to make possible and worthwhile the study, over very long time spans, of these "minor" objects. Also the public, the media and even some political assell}blies have become aware that these "minor" objects of our planetary environnement could become deadly weapons. Apparently they did have a role in Earth history and a role more ominous than "predicting" defeat (or victory, why not?) to batches of credulous rulers. Remembering what may have happened to the dinosaurs but keeping all the discretion necessary to avoid creating irrational scares, it may not be unwise or irrelevant to improve our knowledge of the physics and dynamics of these objects and to study in particular their interactions with our planet.

Processes governing the evolution of planetesimals are critical to understanding how rocky planets are formed, how water is delivered to them, the origin of planetary atmospheres, how cores and magnetic dynamos develop, and ultimately, which planets have the potential to be habitable. Theoretical advances and new data from asteroid and meteorite observations, coupled with spacecraft missions such as Rosetta and Dawn, have led to major advances in this field over the last decade. This transdisciplinary volume presents an authoritative overview of the latest in our understanding of the processes of planet formation. Combining meteorite, asteroid and icy body observations with theory and modelling of accretion and orbital dynamics, this text also provides insights into the exoplanetary system and the search for habitable worlds. This is an essential reference for those interested in planetary formation, solar system dynamics, exoplanets and planetary habitability.

IMAGE (Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration) is the first NASA MIDEX mission and the first mission dedicated to imaging the Earth's magnetosphere. This volume offers detailed descriptions of the IMAGE instrumentation and of the image inversion techniques used to interpret the data. Also included are chapters on the IMAGE science objectives, the spacecraft design and capabilities, science and mission operations, and the processing and distribution of IMAGE's nonproprietary data products.

Evry SCHATZMAN Radio-Astronomie, E. N. S. , Paris, France The recent developments of the Supernova theory and numerical relativity can lead in the near future to an understanding of gravitational collapse and to a reliable prediction of the amplitude of the gravitational waves generated during neutron star formation. These prospects explain the great interest which has developed in the international scientific community for the workshop. We were financially limited in the number of guests and participants and we apologize for not having been able to gather all the specialists actually involved in research programs relevant to gravitational collapse and numerical relativity. This limitation took place despite all the financial assistance which we have received from various institutions, first the C. N. R. S. (Centre National de 1a Recherche Scientifique) which has supported the request of Dr. Monique SIGNORE of organizing a workshop. Furhter help was obtained from I. N. A. G. (Institut National d'Astronomie et de Geophysique), Toulouse University (Universite "Paul Sabatier" or "Toulouse III"), the Toulouse section of C. N. E. S. (Centre National d'Etudes Spatia1es), the Department of theoretical physics of the C. E. A. , the Department of Astrophysique of the C. E. A. (Centre d'Etudes Nucleaires, Saclay), D. R. E. T. (Direction des Recherches Etudes et Techniques) and last but not least an important grant from NATO, whose scientific Committee recognized the international significance of the workshop. The meeting was organized by Professor D.