This book provides a review of the work in progress on the infrared spectral region of stars. The most important previous mission, the Infrared Astronomy Satellite (IRAS) was launched in 1983. Although it was only operating for one year, in that time it surveyed the whole sky for infrared emitters of many different kinds providing a fundamental catalogue of thousands of objects. As a consequence of its success, a new mission to observe the infrared sky is being planned. The Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) is scheduled for a launch in May 1993. It should add substantially to our knowledge of the stars. The volume is based on the proceedings of an international conference held in Montpellier, France. It provided an excellent forum for the experts in the field to get together and evaluate the status of current knowledge and analyse the instrumentation.

Flare Stars covers the significant progress in photoelectric, photographic, and spectral observations of flare stars. Flare star is a variable star that can undergo unpredictable dramatic increases in brightness for a few minutes believed to be due to extremely intense flares. This book is composed of 16 chapters and begins with an overview of flare stars and the hypothesis of infrared photon transformation. The succeeding chapters deal with the inverse Compton Effect, X-ray radiation and the theory of the transition radiation and its importance to the T Tauri type stars and peculiar objects. These topics are followed by analysis of the photometric and colorimetric flare data based on the fast-electron hypothesis. Other chapters consider the theory of the chromophore of flare stars and the general laws for the behavior of flare stars in stellar association and for T Tauri type stars. The remaining chapters explore the observational data that have shed light on the problems of radio emission and flare dynamics. These chapters also describe the great cosmogonic importance of stellar flares, particularly for understanding the nature and the true character of energy sources within the stars. This book will be of great value to astronomers and researchers.

Two specialized new instruments for ESO's VLT, VISIR and CRIRES, spawned the idea for this workshop. CRIRES is a dedicated very high resolution infrared spectrograph; VISIR features a high resolution spectroscopic mode. Together, the instruments combine the sensitivity of an 8m-telescope with the now well-established reliability of VLT-facility instruments. High resolution here means that lines in cool stellar atmospheres and HII-regions can be resolved. The astrophysical topics discussed in this rather specialized workshop range from the inner solar system to active galactic nuclei. There are many possibilities for new discoveries with these instruments, but the unique capability, which becomes available through high-resolution infrared spectroscopy, is the observation of molecular rotational-vibrational transitions in many astrophysical environments. Particularly interesting and surprising in this context, many papers on modeling and laboratory spectroscopy at the workshop appear to indicate that astronomical observations are lagging a bit behind in this field. The papers are an interesting mix of reports from existing high resolution facilities, reports on modeling efforts of synthetic spectra and reports on laboratory spectra. In this sense, a fruitful exchange between molecular physics and astronomy was again accomplished and is documented in this volume.

Origin and Distribution of the Elements, Volume 30 presents detailed studies of trace elements and isotopes and the use of these data with the techniques of physical and organic chemistry to make relevant interpretations in geology. This book discusses some of the problems of applied chemistry. Organized into five sections encompassing 89 chapters, this volume begins with an overview of the theories of nucleosynthesis that are based on broad empirical foundations involving experiment in nuclear physics and observation in geophysics and astronomy. This text then explores the primeval abundance of the elements wherein the composition of the material from which the Galaxy is formed. Other chapters consider the production of helium in the galaxy. This book discusses as well the dynamics of the cores of highly evolved massive stars. The final chapter deals with the measurements of site populations in crystal structures by electron diffraction and X-ray. Physicists, astronomers, geologists, and geochemists will find this book extremely useful.

Proceedings of the Strasbourg Observatory Colloquium held at Strasbourg, France, June 3-6, 1984

Astronomy and Astrophysics Abstracts aims to present a comprehensive documen tation of the literature concerning all aspects of astronomy, astrophysics, and their border fields. It is devoted to the recording, summarizing, and indexing of the relevant publications throughout the world. Astronomy and Astrophysics Abstracts is prepared by a special department of the Astronomisches Rechen-Institut under the auspices of the International Astronomical Union. Volume 39 records literature published in 1985 and received before August 15, 1985. Some older documents which we received late and which are not surveyed in earlier volumes are included too. We acknowledge with thanks contributions of our colleagues all over the world. We also express our gratitude to all organiza tions, observatories, and publishers which provide us with complimentary copies of their publications. On account of the introduction of an object index the scope of index information will be considerably enlarged beginning with this volume. In connection with the subject index an additional source to satisfy the needs of retrieval is opened up. Starting with Volume 33, all the recording, correction, and data processing work was done by means of computers. The recording was done by our technical staff members Ms. Helga Ballmann, Ms. Mona El-Choura, Ms. Monika Kohl, Ms. Sylvia Matyssek. Ms. Karin Burkhardt, Ms. Susanne Schlotelburg, and Mr. Stefan Wagner supported our task by careful proofreading. It is a pleasure to thank them all for their encouragement. Heidelberg, September 1985 The Editors Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . .

The Sun is merely one of some 200 billion stars that make up the Milky Way--and the Milky Way is only one of a billion galaxies in the known universe. Packed with fascinating facts and stunning photography, this book examines the Galaxy humans call home and travels light years away, to the domain of phenomena such as the Oort cloud.

The last major conference on infrared astronomy was the IAU Symposium No. 96 in June 1980. Since then, the discipline has continued to mature and to contribute to all branches of astrophysics. One particular area of growth has been in spectroscopic capabilities at all infrared wavelengths. The purpose of the Symposium in Toledo was to review the scientific questions to be addressed via infrared spectroscopy and to provide, in the proceedings, a useful summary of the field. The sensitivity of infrared spectroscopic observations is still generally limited by detector characteristics or by thermal background radiation. However in recent years improvements in detector technology together with developments in spectroscopic instrumentation have made possible both quite detailed spectroscopy of the brighter members of many classes of galactic sources and also begun to open up some infrared spectroscopy of extragalactic sources. The potential of the field in the next decade or two is clear. The lRAS mission has completed one of the pre-requisites, namely an all-sky photometric survey. Major space missions utilising cryogenic infrared telescopes have been approved in Europe (ISO) and seem likely in the USA (SIRTF); plans for space submillimeter telescopes are firming up. On the ground large telescopes optimized for infrared observations are now in operation at high altitude sites and specialized submillimeter facilities are under construction. The particular advantages of planned, very large telescopes for infrared observations are widely accepted.