Six Months in Ascension, first published in 1878, contains an account by Isobel Sarah B. Gill of the 1877 scientific expedition to the island of Ascension, in the South Atlantic, undertaken to measure the distance of the sun from the earth by observing the opposition of the planet Mars. The expedition, funded by the Royal Astronomical Society, was led by Isobel's husband, the astronomer David Gill, with a heliometer and other scientific instruments provided by Lord Lindsay. Isobel accompanied the expedition as her husband's companion. Her account offers personal details and stories omitted from the scientific reports on the expedition written by her husband and colleagues and it contains beautiful descriptions of the island of Ascension. The book offers a rare view of the personal, practical and behind-the-scenes side of a nineteenth-century scientific expedition and provides a fascinating insight into the gender roles of learned Victorian society.

Jeremiah Horrox (1618-1641) was one of the most interesting astronomers Britain has ever produced, and his tragically early death deprived the field of one of its most brilliant talents. In his short life he achieved much, having mastered the current state of astronomy at Cambridge University and going on to make important new calculations about the diameter and position of known planets, moons and stars. In the 1660s and 70s several prominent scientists, including Huygens, Newton and Flamsteed, took an interest in Horrox's discoveries and published his surviving treatises. This memoir of 1859 was part of a Victorian revival of interest in Horrox. It includes translation of his major work, Venus in Sole Visa, a draft of a treatise on the transit of Venus, in which he describes the conjunction of Venus with the sun, which he correctly calculated and observed in 1639.

The Herschels in this biography are Sir William Herschel (1738 1822), his sister Caroline (1750 1848) and Sir John Herschel (1792 1871), William's son. Sir William was an astronomer and telescope-maker who discovered the planet Uranus in 1781. He was appointed 'the King's astronomer' to George III in 1782, and under his patronage built the then largest telescope in the world. Caroline Herschel worked as her brother's assistant for much of his career but was also an accomplished astronomer in her own right, discovering eight comets and producing a catalogue of nebulae. Her nephew Sir John Herschel was also a distinguished astronomer who made many observations of stars in the southern hemisphere. This book by the astronomer and writer Agnes Clerke (1842 1907), published in 1895, provides both an analysis of their work and an assessment of its contribution to later astronomical research.

Continuum radio emission and fine structure (in particular millisecond spikes) have recently raised interest as diagnostic tools for the interpretation of energy release and particle acceleration in flares. In the circles of the European solar radio astronomers, loosely organized in CESRA, the idea of a workshop came up intended for active observers of the impulsive phase of flares in radio and associated emissions. The scientific organizing committee included A.D. Benz (chairman), A. Magun, M. Pick, G. Trottet, and P. Zlobec. The workshop was held on May 27-31, 1985 in the castle of Duino near Trieste, Italy. The meeting intended to find a common terminology, to compare radio observations with measurements in other emissions and to confront observations with theoretical concepts. We have achieved a representative summary on the current status of the field and a clear perspective for the next cycle. This volume contains the reviews and a selection of contributions and extended abstracts of papers presented at the workshop. I wish to thank the local organizers, in particular A. Abrami, M. Comari, F. Depolli, L. Fornasari, M. Messerotti (chairman), M. Nonino, and P. Zlobec. Financial support was graciously provided by the Italian Research Council (CNR). Most of all, however, I would like to express my thankfulness to our host, His Highness Prince Raimondo della Torre e Tasso, for his invaluable hospitality. We are deeply sorry to hear of his passing in the meantime. To his memory these proceedings are dedicated.

Beyond the four centuries of sunspot observation and the five decades during which artificial satellites have monitored the Sun that is to say for 99.99999% of the Sun 's existence our knowledge of solar history depends largely on analogy with kindred main sequence stars, on the outcome of various kinds of modelling, and on indirect measures of solar activity. They include the analysis of lunar rocks and meteorites for evidence of solar flares and other components of the solar cosmic-ray (SCR) flux, and the measurement of cosmogenic isotopes in wood, stratified ice and marine sediments to evaluate changes in the galactic cosmic-ray (GCR) flux and thus infer changes in the sheltering magnetic fields of the solar wind. In addition, shifts in the global atmospheric circulation which appear to result from cyclic fluctuations in solar irradiance have left their mark in river sediments and in the isotopic composition of cave deposits. In this volume the results these sources have already produced have been summarised, paying special attention to those that reflect processes in different parts of the Sun 's interior and that display periodicities and trends which may enable us to forecast future large-scale environmental changes.

Much progress has been made in recent years in understanding the complex physics of polarized radiation in the sun and stars. This physics includes vector radiative transfer and spectral line formation in the presence of magnetic fields, scattering theory and coherence effects, partial redistribution and turbulent magnetic fields, numerical techniques and Stokes inversion, as well as concepts for polarimetric imaging with a precision limited only by photon statistics. The present volume gives a comprehensive and up-to-date account of this rapidly evolving field of science.

These Proceedings result from the papers and discussions of the U.S.-Japan Seminar "Recent Advances in the Understanding of Solar Flares" held in Tokyo October 5-8, 1982. The meeting was sponsored jointly by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and the u.S. National Science Foundation. The principal aim of the meeting was to obtain the most up-to-date physical picture of solar flares by bringing together results from the recent observations by the Solar Maximum Mission (SMM) and HINOTORI satellites, together with other satellite data and ground-based data at both optical and radio wavelengths. These data cover the recent maximum of the solar activity cycle. The SMM and HINOTORI introduced a new dimension in flare observations by carrying out the first hard X-ray imaging observations, and the organizers especially felt that an intense discussion of the significance of these results in the context of flare theories would be important. Starting with an introductory presentation of the characteristics of the instruments on board the satellites, the sessions of the first day and the beginning of the second dealt mainly with energy transport in flares and with .the formation process of the hot plasma which is .

The purpose of the book is a dual one: to detail the nature and results of Tunguska investigations in the former USSR and present-day CIS, and to destroy two long-standing myths still held in the West. The first concerns alleged "final solutions" that have ostensibly been found in Russia or elsewhere. The second concerns the mistaken belief that there has been little or no progress in understanding the nature of the Tunguska phenomenon. All this is treated by the author in a scholarly and responsible manner. Although the book does present certain unusual findings of Russian and Ukrainian scholars, it is important to stress that this is not a sensational book; it is, rather, a serious exposition of the results of rational investigations into a difficult scientific problem. We are demonstrating the true complexity of the problem that is now entering its second century of existence. Simple meteoritic models cannot explain all the characteristics of this complicated event, and therefore certain so-called "unconventional hypotheses" about the nature of the Tunguska explosion are to be considered as well.

After several decades spent in astronomical semi-obscurity, the Moon has of late suddenly emerged as an object of considerable interest to students of astronomy as well as of other branches of natural science and technology; and the reasons for this are indeed of historical significance. For the Moon has now been destined to be the first celestial body outside the confines of our own planet to be reconnoitered at a close range by means of spacecraft built and sent out by human hand for this purpose. At the time of writing, not less than ten such spacecraft of American as well as Rus sian origin landed already on different parts of the lunar surface; and some of these provided remarkable records of its detail structure to a spatial resolution increased thousandfold over that attained so far from our ground-based facilities. A renewed interest in our satellite, stemming from this source, on the part of the students of many branches of science and technology has also underlined the need for presenting the gist of our present knowledge in this field in the form that could serve as an introduction to the study of the Moon not only for astronomers, but also for serious students from other branches of science or technology.

This book provides a concise but broad overview of the engineering, science and flight history of planetary landers and atmospheric entry probes designed to explore the atmospheres and surfaces of other planets. It covers engineering aspects specific to such vehicles which are not usually treated in traditional spacecraft engineering texts. Examples are drawn from over thirty different lander and entry probe designs that have been used for lunar and planetary missions since the early 1960s. The authors provide detailed illustrations of many vehicle designs from different international space programs, and give basic information on their missions and payloads, irrespective of the mission's success or failure. Several missions are discussed in more detail to demonstrate the broad range of the challenges involved and the solutions implemented. This will form an important reference for professionals, academic researchers and graduate students involved in planetary science, aerospace engineering and space mission development.

Solar physics in India has a tradition that can be traced to the setting up of the Kodaikanal Observatory in 1899 when the Madras Observatory was relocated to a high altitude site with a view to initiate observations of the sun. This conference on Magnetic Coupling between the Interior and the Atmosphere of the Sun during 2-5 December 2008 was planned to coincide with centenary of the Evershed effect discovery at Kodaikanal in 1909. The aim of this meeting was to bring to a critical focus a comprehensive - derstanding of the important issues pertaining to solar magnetism with particular emphasis on the various MHD processes that operate in the solar atmosphere. The current status of magnetic eld measurements and their implications in the light of recenttheoriesandnumericalmodelingthataddressthe fundamentalscalesandp- cessesinthehighlymagnetizedturbulentplasmawerereviewedduringthismeeting. The meeting was timely for the following reasons: Space observations such as from SOHO and TRACE have provided a wealth of multiwavelength observations onprocessesoccurringinregionsofthe atmosphereextendingfromthe photosphere up to the outer corona. With the launch of Hinode and STEREO in 2006 and of SDO (Solar Dynamics Observatory) shortly, this conference provided a platform for in-depth discussions on new results from various space missions as well as a comparison with ground-based observing facilities such as the Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope. Using sophisticated image processing techniques, such telescopes r- tinelygenerateobservationswitharesolutionbetterthan0. 1arcsec,therebyyielding more informative diagnostics for instance of the microstructure of ux tubes.

This book presents basic information on material science (geochemistry, geophysics, geology, mineralogy, etc.), interaction between subsystem consisting earth system (atmosphere, hydrosphere, litho (geo) sphere, biosphere, humans) and in earth-planet system and evolution of earth-planetary system. The nature-humans interactions are described and new view on earth, planets and humans (integration of anthropocentrism and naturecentrism) are presented.

This book represents Volume II of the Proceedings of the UN/ESA/NASA Workshop on the International Heliophysical Year 2007 and Basic Space Science, hosted by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Tokyo, 18 - 22 June, 2007. It covers two programme topics explored in this and past workshops of this nature: (i) non-extensive statistical mechanics as applicable to astrophysics, addressing q-distribution, fractional reaction and diffusion, and the reaction coefficient, as well as the Mittag-Leffler function and (ii) the TRIPOD concept, developed for astronomical telescope facilities. The companion publication, Volume I of the proceedings of this workshop, is a special issue in the journal Earth, Moon, and Planets, Volume 104, Numbers 1-4, April 2009.

K. O. KIEPENHEUER ( Fraunhofer Institut, Freiburg i. Br., Germany) The present symposium, to my knowledge the largest ever held in the field of solar research (170 astronomers from 21 countries) was held in the building of the Hun garian Academy of Sciences in Budapest from September 4 to 8, 1967. It was the 35th symposium organized and sponsored by the International Astronomical Union. The majority of participants were financedfrom national sources. The Organizing Commit tee consisted of K. O. Kiepenheuer (Chairman), L. Davis, L. Dezso (Local Organizer), A.D. Fokker, R. Michard, A.B. Severny, H.J. Smith, Z. Svestka, and H. Tanaka. In order to ensure prompt publication, the manuscripts had to be supplied by the authors 1 month after the meeting. The discussions have been recorded on tape. Their reproduction in this book, however, is based almost completely on the contributors' writing down their comments and questions on the spot. Two special projects have been reported and discussed shortly during the sym posium: The world wide project 'Cooperative Study of Solar Active Regions' (CSSAR) organized by Dr. R. Michard, under the auspices of the IAU, which has put at the disposal of our solar community a precious observing material on Active Regions over a period of 6 months."

Since Luna and Lunar Orbiter photographed the far side of the Moon, the mysterious dichotomy between the face of the Moon as we see it from Earth and the side of the Moon that is hidden has puzzled lunar scientists. As we learned more from the Apollo sample return missions and later robotic satellites, the puzzle literally deepened, showing asymmetry of the crust and mantle, all the way to the core of the Moon. This book summarizes the author's successful search for an ancient impact feature, the Near Side Megabasin of the Moon and the extensions to impact theory needed to find it. The implications of this ancient event are developed to answer many of the questions about the history of the Moon.

Astronomical jets are key astrophysical phenomena observed in gamma-ray bursts, active galactic nuclei or young stars. Research on them has largely occurred within the domains of astronomical observations, astrophysical modeling and numerical simulations, but the recent advent of high energy density facilities has added experimental control to jet studies. Front-line research on jet launching and collimation requires a highly interdisciplinary approach and an elevated level of sophistication. Bridging the gaps between pure magnetohydrodynamics, thermo-chemical evolution, high angular resolution spectro-imaging and laboratory experiments is no small matter. This volume strives to bridge those very gaps. It offers a series of lectures which, taken as whole, act as a thorough reference for the foundations of this discipline. These lectures address the following: * laboratory jets physics from laser and z-pinch plasma experiments, * the magnetohydrodynamic theory of relativistic and non-relativistic stationary jets, * heating mechanisms in magnetohydrodynamic jets, from the solar magnetic reconnection to the molecular shock heating perspectives, * atomic and molecular microphysics of jet shocked material. In addition to the lectures, the book offers, in closing, a presentation of a series of observational diagnostics, thus allowing for the recovery of basic physical quantities from jet emission lines.

NASA's Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) was launched on August 25, 1997, carrying six high-resolution spectrometers that measure the abundances of the elements, isotopes, and ionic charge states of energetic nuclei in space. Data from these instruments is being used to measure and compare the composition of the solar corona, the nearby interstellar medium, and cosmic-ray sources in the Galaxy, and to study particle acceleration processes in a variety of environments. ACE also includes three instruments that monitor solar wind and energetic particle activity near the inner Lagrangian point, "1.5 million kilometers sunward of Earth, and provide continuous, real-time data to NOAA for use in forecasting space weather. Eleven of the articles in this volume review scientific progress and outline questions that ACE will address in solar, space-plasma, and cosmic-ray physics. Other articles describe the ACE spacecraft, the real-time solar-wind system, and the instruments used to measure energetic particle composition.

This book focuses on the recent advances in our understanding of solar convection and activity, and on new methods and results of helioseismic diagnostics. It provides a comprehensive overview of the current status of the field and presents new ideas and approaches.

Due to its specific chemical and physical properties, water is essential for life on Earth. And it is assumed that this would be the case for extraterrestrial life as well. Therefore it is important to investigate where water can be found in the Universe. Although there are places that are completely dry, places where the last rainfall happened probably several 100 million years ago, surprisingly this substance is quite omnipresent. In the outer solar system the large satellites of Jupiter and Saturn are covered by a thick layer of ice that could be hiding a liquid ocean below. This of course brings up the question of whether the recently detected extrasolar planets could have some water on their surfaces and how we can detect this. Water molecules are also found in interstellar gas and dust clouds. This book begins with an introductory chapter reviewing the physical and chemical properties of water. Then it illuminates the apparent connection between water and life. This is followed by chapters dealing with our current knowledge of water in the solar system, followed by a discussion concerning the potential presence and possible detection of water on exoplanets. The signature of water in interstellar space and stars are reviewed before the origin of water in the Universe is finally discussed. The book ends with an appendix on detection methods, satellite missions and astrophysical concepts touched upon in the main parts of the book. The search for water in the Universe is related to the search for extraterrestrial life and is of fundamental importance for astrophysics, astrobiology and other related topics. This book therefore addresses students and researchers in these fields.

Today many scientists recognize plasma as the key element in understanding new observations in interplanetary and interstellar space, in stars, galaxies, and clusters of galaxies, and throughout the observable universe. Plasma astrophysics and cosmology, as a unified discipline, cover topics such as the large scale structure and filamentation of the universe; the microwave background; the formation of galaxies and magnetic fields; active galactic nuclei and quasars; the origin and abundance of light elements; star formation and the evolution of solar systems; redshift periodicities and anomalous redshifts; general relativity; electric fields; the acceleration of charged particles to high energies; and cosmic rays. Plasma Astrophysics and Cosmology is an update on the observations made in radio, optical, and high-energy astrophysics, especially over the last decade, and addresses the paradigm changing discoveries made by the planetary probes and satellites, radio telescopes, and the Hubble space telescope. Over twenty contributors, all distinguished plasma scientists, present an entirely new picture of the nature of our plasma universe with articles ranging from the popular level to advanced topics in plasma cosmology.

This book represents the proceedings of a NATO Advanced Study Institute which was held at Bonas from August 25 till Sep tember 5, 1980 and was devoted to the study of "Solar Phenomena in Stars and Stellar Systems." It is intended for a broad audi ence. Students and post-doctoral scientists for example can dis cover new aspects of astrophysics. The general spirit of the ASI was aimed at presenting a unified aspect of astrophysical phenomena which can be studied intensively on the Sun although they are of a much more general nature. On the other hand, spe cialists in solar or stellar physics will find here the latest theoretical developments and/or the most recent observations made in their own field of research. An extensive bibliography will be found throughout the various sections, to which the reader may refer, for more detailed developments in various specific areas. In the past, stellar and solar astrophysics have more or less followed their own independent tracks. However, with the rapid development of modern techniques, in particular artificial satellites like the International Ultraviolet Explorer and the Einstein Observatory, which provide a new wealth of data, it appears that chromospheres, coronae, magnetic fields, mass loss and stellar winds, etc . . . ., are found not only in the Sun but occur also in other stars. Frequently these other stars represent quite different conditions of gravity, lumino ity, and other parameters from those occurring in the Sun."

Advanced technologies in astronomy at various wavelengths have provided us with high resolution and high quality data on the QSO population. This meeting was aimed at understanding the morphology and nature of the host galaxies and environments of QSOs. The invited lectures as well as the contributed and poster papers highlighted the main issues of current research: the stellar and gaseous content of the underlying galaxy; the characterization of the population of companions and the nature of their interaction with the host galaxy; the connection between radio-loud QSO and radio-galaxies, and QSOs and ULIRGs; the evolution with redshift of both the host galaxy and its environment, and the main implications in theories of galaxy formation and evolution. This volume provides a valuable overview and timely update of the exciting and rapidly developing field of QSO hosts and their environments - essential reading for graduate students and researchers.

In June of 1996, at the idyllic seaside resort of Guaruja, Brazil, a renowned group of researchers in space and astrophysical plasmas met to provide a forum on Advanced Topics on Astrophysical and Space Plasmas at a school consisting of some 60 students and teachers, mainly from Brazil and Argentina, but also from all the other parts of the globe. The purpose was to provide an update on the latest theories, observations, and simulations of space-astrophysical plasma phenomena. The topics covered included space plasma mechanisms for particle acceleration, nonthermal emission in cosmic plasma, magnetohydrodynamic instabilities in solar, interstellar, and other cosmic objects, magnetic field line reconnection and merging, the nonlinear and often chaotic structure of astrophysical plasmas, and the advances in high performance supercomputing resources to replicate the observed phenomena. The lectures were presented by Professor Mark Birkinshaw of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the University of Bristol; Dr Anthony Peratt, Los Alamos National Laboratory Scientific Advisor to the United States Department of Energy; Dr Dieter Biskamp of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, Garching, Germany; Professor Donald Melrose, Director, Centre for Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Sydney, Australia; Professor Abraham Chian of the National Institute for Space Research, Brazil; and Professor Nelson Fiedler-Ferrara of the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. As summarized by Professor Reuven Opher, Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics, University of Sao Paulo, the advanced or interested student of space and astrophysical plasmas will find reference to nearly all modern aspects in the field of Plasma Astrophysics and Cosmology in the presented lectures.

Les deuxiernes "Rencontres de l'Observatoire", qui ont eu lieu a l'Observatoire de Paris a Meudon du 10 au 14 Janvier 2000, ont reuni autour du theme "Problernes ernergents en physique de I'espace" 120 physiciens et astrophysiciens venus d'une vingtaine de pays differents. Nous avons voulu honorer a cette occasion Jean-Louis Steinberg pour ses con- tributions majeures a la recherche spatiale, ala radioastronomie et a la physique de I'espace. L'approche explicitement pluridisciplinaire de ce colloque, qui ne s'est pas laisse confiner dans les limites etroites de la physique spatiale ni dans celles imposees par certains programmes officiels, suit l'esprit de sa carriere scientifique: sortir des limites des sujets deja etudies ou sur Ie point de l'etre, et appliquer les connaissances acquises pour explorer de nouveaux domaines. Ce dernier quart de siecle a vu une croissance vertigineuse des performances spatiales. La technologie moderne ne perrnet pas encore de jongler avec les univers comme Ie prestidigitateur de Grandville (Grandville, Un autre monde, ed. H. Four- nier, Paris, 1844); mais quelques decades ont suffi pour voir des instruments soph- istiques explorer les frontieres du systerne solaire, et la cornmunaute de la recher- che spatiale a depasse rapidement Ie sujet etroit de I'environnement soleil-terre pour s'interesser a I'ensemble de l'heliosphere, OU les memes processus physiques sont a I'ceuvre.

First published in 1961, this book gives the full mathematical theory of the propagation of radio waves in the ionosphere and their reflection from it. It is complementary to J. A. Ratcliffe's books The Magneto-ionic Theory, which concentrates on the physical principles involved, since Dr Budden gives the mathematical development of many topics mentioned by Ratcliffe. The book will serve as a textbook for those comparatively new to the subject and as a reference book for practising engineers and research workers in the field of radio communication, for whom an understanding of the mathematical methods is important in solving practical problems.