The overall stellar metallicity scale as a function of age for both Magellanic Clouds reveals that they have followed a different pattern of enrichment when compared to each other as well as to the Galactic disk. In addition, an investigation into the abundances of two key elements, oxygen and europium, shows that the detailed nucleosynthesis history of these systems is unique in comparison to any Galactic population yet studied.

Observed mass loss rates and Galactic stellar population distributions are used to estimate the rate of injection of stardust into the ISM. M stars and RLOH/IR Stars produce most of the silicates; most of the carbon and SiC comes from carbon stars. WR stars, novae, and supernovae may eject dust with chemical anomalies. There is little observational evidence for a major stellar source of hydrocarbon grains. The Galactic dust ecology considered by comparing stellar dust injection with depletion by star formation and supernova shocks suggests that dust grains are produced by accretion in molecular clouds at 1 to 5 times the stellar rate.

The 14-monthly variation of the Earth's axis is a free oscillation, and like others it is damped, and must be maintained by some irregular disturbance. In addition there are complications from the annual variation and observational error. The method adopted is first to analyse the data from 1899 to 1967 over 7-yr intervals, to eliminate the free period as well as possible and leave a mean value of the annual terms. The mean displacements fluctuated considerably. With a unit 0·001″ l(=x) ranged from – 15 to + 53, m(= – y) from the start to 1947 from – 41 to + 3, in both cases quite irregularly, but m reached – 164 in 1955–61 and has reached – 225 in 1962–8. The apparent standard errors are mostly about 6. This behaviour is inconsistent with any hypothesis of a uniform rate of drift in either the pole or the observatories. A smooth formula for interpolating the means was adopted; this and the mean annual terms were subtracted, and the remainder was analysed for harmonic terms of 14-month period. Drift of phase gave a correction to this trial period. A model on Yule's lines was used to estimate the parameters in a disturbed system. The remaining observational error over 14-month intervals turned out to be very small. The final period was 433·15 ± 2·23 mean solar days. The damping factor e–k in 14 months gave k = 0·05 ± 0·034, suggesting a time of relaxation between 14 and 73 yr, with a most probable value of 23 yr.

Most treatments of lower hybrid waves include either electromagnetic or warm-plasma effects, but not both. Here we compare numerical dispersion curves for lower hybrid waves with a new analytic dispersion relation that includes both warm and electromagnetic effects. Very good agreement is obtained over significant ranges in wavenumber and plasma parameters, except where ion magnetization effects become important.

Unusually long activity of the Taurid meteor complex, extending over 3-5 months according to new estimations based on various orbital similarity criteria, has been evoking controversies about the possible origin and dynamical evolution of this unique complex of meteor streams. It even casts doubts on the reality of the extension of the complex. In the present paper orbital elements and the extension of the Taurid meteor complex are re-examined on the bases of the most precise photographic meteor orbits available from the IAU Meteor Data Center in Lund. The results are evaluated and discussed from the viewpoint of various proposals on the origin and dynamical evolution of the complex.

Integrated optical components (mostly single-mode fibers and couplers) can be used to achieve several functions that are needed in interferometry: coherent beam transportation and recombination, pathlength modulation and control for fringe tracking and double Fourier interferometry, spatial filtering of the wavefront and interferogram calibration. Their potential is assessed and the main problems encountered in their implementation are discussed: dispersion, polarization behavior, and especially starlight injection.

Galaxies are observed to obey a strict set of dynamical scaling relations. We review these relations for rotationally supported disk galaxies spanning many decades in mass, surface brightness, and gas content. The behavior of these widely varied systems can be summarized with a handful of empirical laws connected by a common acceleration scale.

Most Tidal Dwarf Galaxies (TDGs) so-far discussed in the literature may be considered as young ones or even newborns, as they are still physically linked to their parent galaxies by an umbilical cord: the tidal tail at the tip of which they are usually observed. Old Tidal Dwarf Galaxies, completely detached from their progenitors, are still to be found. Using N-body numerical simulations, we have shown that tidal objects as massive as 109 solar masses may be formed in interacting systems and survive for more than one Gyr. Old TDGs should hence exist in the Universe. They may be identified looking at a peculiarity of their “genetic identity card”: a relatively high abundance in heavy elements, inherited from their parent galaxies. Finally, using this technique, we revisit the dwarf galaxies in the local Universe trying to find arguments pro and con a tidal origin.

Star clusters have hierarchical patterns in space and time, suggesting formation processes in the densest regions of a turbulent interstellar medium. Clusters also have hierarchical substructure when they are young, which makes them all look like the inner mixed parts of a pervasive stellar hierarchy. Young field stars share this distribution, presumably because some of them came from dissolved clusters and others formed in a dispersed fashion in the same gas. The fraction of star formation that ends up in clusters is apparently not constant, but may increase with interstellar pressure. Hierarchical structure explains why stars form in clusters and why many of these clusters are self-bound. It also explains the cluster mass function. Halo globular clusters share many properties of disk clusters, including what appears to be an upper cluster cutoff mass. However, halo globulars are self-enriched and often connected with dwarf galaxy streams. The mass function of halo globulars could have initially been like the power-law mass function of disk clusters, but the halo globulars have lost their low-mass members. The reasons for this loss are not understood. It could have happened slowly over time as a result of cluster evaporation, or it could have happened early after cluster formation as a result of gas loss. The latter model explains best the observation that the globular cluster mass function has no radial gradient in galaxies.

We investigate the molecular evolution in star forming cores from dense cloud cores (nH ~ 104 cm−3, T ~ 10 K) to protostellar cores. A detailed gas-grain reaction network is solved in infalling fluid parcels in 1-D radiation hydrodynamic model. Large organic molecules are mainly formed via grain-surface reaction at T ~ several 10 K and sublimated to the gas-phase at ~ 100 K, while carbon-chain species are formed at a few 10 K after the sublimation of CH4 ice. The former accounts for the high abundance of large organic molecules in hot corinos such as IRAS16293, and the latter accounts for the carbon chain species observed toward L1527. The relative abundance of carbon chain species and large organic species would depend on the collapse time scale and/or temperature in the dense core stage. The large organic molecules and carbon chains in the protostellar cores are heavily deuterated; although they are formed in the warm temperatures, their ingredients have high D/H ratios, which are set in the cold core phase and isothermal collapse phase. HCOOH is formed by the gas-phase reaction of OH with the sublimated H2CO, and is further enriched in Deuterium due to the exothermic exchange reaction of OH + D → OD + H.

In the fluid parcels of the 1-D collapse model, warm temperature T. ~ several 10 K lasts for only ~ 104 yr, and the fluid parcels fall to the central star in ~ 100 yr after the temperature of the parcel rises to T ≥ 100 K. These timescales are determined by the size of the warm region and infall (~ free-fall) velocity: rwarm/tff. In reality, circum stellar disk is formed, in which fluid parcels stay for a longer timescale than the infall timescale. We investigate the molecular evolution in the disk by simply assuming that a fluid parcel stays at a constant temperature and density (i.e. a fixed disk radius) for 104 − 105 yrs. We found that some organic species which are underestimated in our 1-D collapse model, such as CH3OCH3 and HCOOCH3, become abundant in the disk. We also found that these disk species have very high D/H ratio as well, since their ingredients are highly deuterated.

Finally we investigate molecular evolution in a 3D hydrodynamic simulation of star forming core. We found CH3OH are abundant in the vicinity of the first core. The abundances of large organic species are determined mainly by the local temperature (sublimation), because of the short lifetime of the first core and the efficient mass accretion via angular momentum transfer.

A general picture of pulsar magnetospheres is outlined which suggests polar current flow should proceed within a magnetic flux tube with conducting boundaries. The dynamics of this current flow is considered, including the effect of formation of pair plasma on the potential. A slot gap surrounding the stream of pair plasma is described, and the electric fields and J·E work done in the gap are calculated. The inapplicability of curvature emission to the formation of γ-ray pulses is discussed. The dynamics of pair plasma flow is described, including electrostatic trapping of low energy positrons, polar cap bombardment and heating, and the emission of soft X-rays from the cap. The relation of this current flow and polar cap heating to the formation of fluctuations on the radio subpulse time scale is also described. The importance of the boundary layer between the pair plasma and the slot gap is illustrated by calculations of the boundary layer structure and microscopic instability, which show that this region may be the source of pulsar emission.

I will describe a number of quantitative results and qualitative aspects of work in progress on the “slot gap” model for the emission regions of a pulsar, proposed by Arons and Scharlemann (1979, hereafter AS) and by Arons (1979b, hereafter I). The results and ideas concern the dynamics and emission physics of relativistic plasma and current flow along the polar field lines of an isolated, rotating magnetized neutron star with the axis of its dipole moment oblique to the rotation axis - a pulsar. The quantitative modelling is confined to the physics within a polar flux tube and is therefore “local”. Full detail will be given in papers now being written. However, development of this type of model requires the use of boundary conditions which follow from a qualitative view of the whole magnetosphere. Because this view involves some qualitative ideas not widely discussed in the literature, I describe it briefly.

Radial velocity studies of X-ray binaries provide the most solid evidence for the existence of stellar-mass black holes. We currently have 20 confirmed cases, with dynamical masses in excess of 3 M⊙. Accurate masses have been obtained for a subset of systems which gives us a hint at the mass spectrum of the black hole population. This review summarizes the history of black hole discoveries and presents the latest results in the field.

The basic physics of model atmospheres for Luminous Blue Stars (LBS) are discussed. The discussion comprises the model description of both subsonic photospheres and supersonic winds and the application of model calculations for the purpose of quantitative spectroscopy.

Massive stars inject energy into the surrounding medium and form shell structures. Bubbles are blown by fast stellar winds from individual massive stars, while superbubbles are blown by fast stellar winds and supernova explosions from groups of massive stars. Bubbles and superbubbles share a similar overall structure: a swept-up dense shell with an interior filled by low-density hot gas. Physical properties of a bubble/superbubble can be affected by magnetic field, thermal conduction, turbulent mixing, inhomogeneous ambient medium, etc. I will review recent progresses on observations and compare them to theoretical expectations for (1) swept-up dense shells, (2) hot interiors, and (3) interface between a dense shell and its interior hot gas.

We report a trigonometric parallax measurement for the H2O masers around the protoplanetary nebula OH 231.8+4.2 carried out with the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA). Based on astrometric monitoring for 1 year, we measured a parallax of 0.65 ± 0.01 mas, corresponding to a distance of 1.54 +0.02−0.01 kpc. The spatial distribution of H2O masers is consistent with that found in the previous studies. After removing the average proper motion of 1.4 mas yr−1, corresponding to 10 km s−1, the internal motions of the H2O maser spots indicate a bipolar outflow.

The morphology and kinematics of molecular gas in the central regions of barred galaxies are described. The largest gas concentrations are often located near ILRs, although there is a range of morphologies. The gas motions associated with star-forming rings are predominantly circular, while motions just beyond the rings are often non-circular and in some cases show clear radial inflow. In barred galaxies with circumnuclear starbursts in early phases of evolution, the CO is centrally peaked, perhaps inside IILRs. The most intense star formation occurs where the gas motions are circular, and where the rotation curve rises steeply and is nearly solid body.

Icy grain mantles are commonly observed through infrared spectroscopy toward dense clouds, cloud cores, protostellar envelopes and protoplanetary disks. Up to 80% of the available oxygen, carbon and nitrogen are found in such ices; the most common ice constituents – H2O, CO2 and CO – are second in abundance only to H2 in many star forming regions. In addition to being a molecular reservoir, ice chemistry is responsible for much of the chemical evolution from H2O to complex, prebiotic molecules. Combining the exisiting ISO, Spitzer, VLT and Keck ice data results in a large sample of ice sources (~80) that span all stages of star formation and a large range of protostellar luminosities (<0.1–105 L⊙). Here we summarize the different techniques that have been applied to mine this ice data set on information on typical ice compositions in different environments and what this implies about how ices form and evolve during star and planet formation. The focus is on how to maximize the use of empirical constraints from ice observations, followed by the application of information from experiments and models. This strategy is used to identify ice bands and to constrain which ices form early during cloud formation, which form later in the prestellar core and which require protostellar heat and/or UV radiation to form. The utility of statistical tests, survival analysis and ice maps is highlighted; the latter directly reveals that the prestellar ice formation takes place in two phases, associated with H2O and CO ice formation, respectively, and that most protostellar ice variation can be explained by differences in the prestellar CO ice formation stage. Finally, special attention is paid to the difficulty of observing complex ices directly and how gas observations, experiments and models help in constraining this ice chemistry stage.

A general binary hypothesis of the emission-line phenomenon in early-type stars was published eleven years ago (Kříž & Harmanec 1975, Harmanec & Kříž 1976; for a reformulation see Harmanec 1982). Since then, new observational techniques and theoretical concepts have led to a number of exciting findings which have made the emission-line phenomenon even more puzzling and challenging than before. It is therefore of interest to ask whether the binary hypothesis can withstand all these developments or not.

We are compiling a catalogue of positions and proper motions of 4 million stars, based on the Guide Star Catalogue (GSC) and the Astrographic Catalogue (AC). The GSC is re-reduced by a method described in this paper. The AC has been newly reduced recently by us for the determination of positions and proper motions of the PPM catalogue.

The expected accuracy of the proper motions of the GSC-AC catalogue ranges between 5 and 6 mas/year. Having an average star density of 100 per square degree, this catalogue will be a useful tool for the reduction of CCD frames.