Introduction: Beyond Disunity and Historicism -- “In Order That We Should Not Ourselves Appear to Be Adjusting Our Estimates … to Make Them Fit Some Predetermined Amount” -- Ptolemy’s Theories of the Latitude of the Planets in the Almagest, Handy Tables, and Planetary Hypotheses -- Alchemy and the Changing Significance of Analysis -- Descartes and the Heart Beat: A Conservative Innovati…
Into the wide blue yonder -- A seagull in orbit -- The Right Stuff, the wrong sex -- The rocket-plane and the Space Shuttle -- Shuttlenauts -- Sally and Svetlana -- Shuttle specialists and passengers -- Stations in space -- Earth orbit and beyond -- Conclusion.Space exploration has developed from early, unmanned space probes through the pioneering years of the ‘Manned’ Mercury, Gemini, and …
Halo White Dwarfs and Galactic Structure -- Old Ultracool White Dwarfs as Cosmological Probes -- Number Counts of White Dwarfs: The Impact of GAIA -- Influence of Metallicity in the Determination of the Age of Halo White Dwarfs -- Cool Halo White Dwarfs from GSCII -- Dark Halo Baryons not in Ancient White Dwarfs? -- The White Dwarf Population in the 2QZ and Sloan Surveys -- White Dwarfs and Cat…
The Earth's Climate and its Response to Solar Variability: The Climate System -- Atmospheric Dynamics, Modes of Variability and Climate Modelling -- Climate Records -- Radiative Processes in the Atmosphere -- The Greenhouse Effect and Radiative Forcing of Climate Change -- Clouds -- Atmospheric Photochemistry -- Response of Climate to Variations in Solar Irradiance -- The Earth's Electric Field…
Local Starbursts as Benchmarks for Galaxy Evolution -- Local Starbursts in a Cosmological Context -- Starbursts in the Evolving Universe: A Local Perspective -- Are There Local Analogs of Lyman Break Galaxies? -- The Disk Wolf-Rayet Population of the Nuclear Starburst Galaxy M83 -- Laser Illuminates Compact Galaxies -- First Spectroscopic Results from the Spitzer Infrared Nearby Galaxies Survey…
The Square Kilometre Array: An International Engineering Perspective -- The Allen Telescope Array -- Sky Noise Limited Snapshot Imaging in the Presence of RFI with LOFAR’s Initial Test Station -- The LOFAR Central Processing Facility Architecture -- Hemispheric Imaging of Galactic Neutral Hydrogen with a Phased Array Antenna System -- Electronic Multi-Beam Radio Astronomy Concept: Embrace a D…
Launch vehicles -- The missiles -- The Shuttle -- Back to expendables -- Heavyweights -- Lightweights -- Boom and bust -- The Chinese experience -- The current crop -- Satellites and space probes -- Failure and redundancy -- Propulsion system failures -- Attitude control system failures -- Electrical failures -- Environmental failures -- Structural failures -- Failures on the ground -- Operator…
Introduction -- Flare Stars in a Quiescent State: General Characteristics of Flare Stars -- Photospheres -- Chromospheres and Transition Regions -- Coronae and Stellar Winds -- Heating Mechanisms for Stellar Atmospheres -- Flares: General Description of Stellar Flares -- Temporal Characteristics of Flares -- Flare Energy -- Dynamics and Radiation Mechanisms of Flares -- Models of Stellar Flares…
Solar and Solar Radio Effects on Technologies -- Overview of Solar Radio Physics and Interplanetary Disturbances -- The Frequency Agile Solar Radiotelescope -- Radio Spectral Diagnostics -- Coronal Magnetic Field Measurements Through Gyroresonance Emission -- Coronal Magnetic Field Measurements Through Bremsstrahlung Emission -- Coronal Magnetic Field Measurements Through Quasi-Transverse Propa…
Adaptive Optics Instrumentation, Data Acquisition and Reduction Strategies -- The Sun and (Exo-)Planets -- Star Formation and Brown Dwarfs -- Evolved Stars -- Galactic Center and AGN -- Galaxies and Cosmology.The field of Adaptive Optics (AO) for astronomy has matured in recent years, and diffraction-limited image resolution in the near-infrared is now routinely achieved by ground-based 8 to 10…