Massive stars are thought to play important roles in the early evolution of the Universe. In this paper, we first classify the final fates of massive stars into 7 cases according to their mass ranges. These variations of the final fate may correspond to the observed large diversities of supernova properties, such as extremely faint and extremely luminous (superluminous) supernovae, and the extremely energetic hypernovae. We then focus on the properties of the peculiar superluminous Type Ic supernova 1999as. We examine radioactive decay models, magnetar models, and circumstellar interaction models for the light curve of SN 1999as. We find that these models are not quite successful, and thus it is crucially important to improve these models to clarify the final fates of massive stars.

Lessons learned in the history and philosophy of science have generally had little immediate impact on how we as individual astronomers conduct our research. And yet we do share many common views on how we undertake basic research, and how we translate observations and theory into communicable knowledge. In this introductory talk I will illustrate how we as extragalactic astronomers have already violated some of the basic tenets of what constitutes “science” as seen from a philosophical point of view, and I will predict what the future of astronomy as a science may soon look like. Simple examples of how we are already “cognitively closed” to many immediate and tangible aspects of the Universe will be given and some solutions to this dilemma will be proposed. We may be at a point in time where more data is not necessarily the best solution to our problems. Discovering that familiar concepts and even certain objects may not exist in the traditional sense of the word could provide a motivation for broadening our way of conceptualizing the extragalactic Universe, more as a continuum of processes and phase transitions rather than an assembly of discrete objects. Once again the Universe may be “forcing us to think”.

Planetary nebulae (PNs) were first discovered over 200 years ago and our understanding of these objects has undergone significant evolution over the years. Developments in astronomical optical spectroscopy and atomic physics have shown that PNe are gaseous objects photoionized by UV radiation from a hot central star. Studies of the kinematics of the nebulae coupled with progress in theories of stellar evolution have led to the identification that PNe are evolved stars and progenitors of white dwarfs. Development of infrared and millimeter-wave technology in the 1970s made us realize that there is significant amount of neutral matter (molecules and dust) in PNe. The link of PNe to the stellar winds from their progenitor asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars and subsequent dynamical interactions are now believed to be the underlying causes of the morphological structures of PNe. The role of PNe as prolific molecular factories producing complex molecules and organic solids has significant implications on the chemical enrichment of the Galaxy.

In this paper, we discuss the misconceptions and errors that we have encountered in our journey of understanding the nature of PN. The various detours and dead ends that had happened during our quest to pin down the evolutionary status and causes of nebulae ejection will be discussed. As there are still many unsolved problems in PN research, these lessons of history have much to offer for future progress in this field.

In the article by Crabtree et al., published in Transactions IAU, Volume XXVIIIA there was an error in the list of authors. Pedro Russo was not included in the list of authors on the organizing committee. The editors apologise to Pedro Russo for this error. The correct authorship is published below:

• PRESIDENT: Dennis R. Crabtree

• VICE-PRESIDENT: Lars Lindberg Christensen

• PAST PRESIDENT: Ian Robson

• ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: Oscar Alvarez Pomare, Augusto Damineli Neto, Richard T. Fienberg, Anne Green, Ajit K. Kembhavi, Pedro Russo, Kazuhiro Sekiguchi, Patricia Ann Whitelock, Jin Zhu

This personal perspective on the development of archaeoastronomy over the last thirty years focuses on interpretative and methodological issues, picking up for example from the debate between Schaefer and Aveni at Oxford VII. How far we have actually progressed in the last three decades? Are we at last starting to achieve the correct fusion between the social science questions that our discipline addresses and the ‘hard science’ methods that are often involved in tackling them? In this paper I argue that the need for our hypotheses to be solidly grounded in social theory, which has rightly been recognised by most archaeoastronomers in recent years, is not an excuse for avoiding the need to be scientifically rigorous in assessing them against the actual evidence. I conclude that identifying robust methodologies for weighing together the different types of data with which the cultural astronomer is faced in different sitations, so as to infer the ‘best’ interpretation, remains at once the most challenging and the most pressing issue facing our ‘interdiscipline’ in the future.

Gisbert Winnewisser, emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Köln, passed away in March 2011 after a long illness. His dedication to molecular spectroscopy in the laboratory and in the interstellar medium, coupled with his very influential voice for molecular science will be extremely difficult to replace.

In the article by Joseph Lazio, Katie Keating, F. A. Jenet and N. E. Kassim published in Proceedings IAU Symposium No. 285 there was an error in the listing of authors. The correct authorship is:

Joseph Lazio, Katie Keating, F. A. Jenet, and N. E. Kassim, the LIGO Scientific Collaboration and the Virgo Collaboration

As an introduction to the theme of this symposium, I give a simple review of the photospheric magnetic field, the properties of the solar cycle, the way in which the magnetic field is thought to be generated by dynamo action, and finally the unusual properties of the recent solar minimum. This has awakened an interest in improving predictions of the solar cycle and in the nature of solar minima not just as gaps between maxima but as phenomena of intrinsic interest in their own right.

Type Ia supernovae (SN Ia) are explosions of white dwarfs whose distances can be measured to a precision of ~5% using luminosity information that is encoded in the light curve shape. This property has been very successfully exploited to measure the history of cosmic expansion and to infer the presence of dark energy. But to learn the properties of dark energy and determine whether it is different from the cosmological constant demands higher precision and better accuracy than optical light curves alone can provide. The largest systematic uncertainties come from light curve fitters, photometric calibration errors, and from poor knowledge of the scattering properties of dust along the line of sight. Efforts to use SN Ia spectra as luminosity indicators have had some success, but have not produced a big step forward. Fortunately, observations of SN Ia in the near infrared (NIR), from 1 to 2 microns, offer a very promising path to better knowledge of the Hubble constant, improved constraints on dark energy, and, possibly, a route to discriminating the progenitor paths for SN Ia explosions.

To inspire and provoke lively discussions, I argue that the accuracy of the basic physical properties of stars, based on analyses of well-observed detached binaries, might be worse than usually believed. I offer some ways how to deal with the situation. I end with a few comments on the studies of extra-solar planets.

The history of astronomy has provided variable sources of unexpected kinds—from novae recorded in oriental archives, rapid radio, optical and high-energy changes in white dwarfs, neutron star and black hole binaries, to recent discoveries with satellites. A brief overview is given, as a prelude to a conference that anticipates a tidal wave of observations and discoveries to be made at all wavelengths during the next five to ten years.

Current and planned telescope systems (both on the ground and in space) as well as new technologies will be discussed with emphasis on their impact on the studies of binary star and exoplanet systems. Although no telescopes or space missions are primarily designed to study binary stars (what a pity!), several are available (or will be shortly) to study exoplanet systems. Nonetheless those telescopes and instruments can also be powerful tools for studying binary and variable stars. For example, early microlensing missions (mid-1990s) such as EROS, MACHO and OGLE were initially designed for probing dark matter in the halos of galaxies but, serendipitously, these programs turned out to be a bonanza for the studies of eclipsing binaries and variable stars in the Magellanic Clouds and in the Galactic Bulge. A more recent example of this kind of serendipity is the Kepler Mission. Although Kepler was designed to discover exoplanet transits (and so far has been very successful, returning many planetary candidates), Kepler is turning out to be a “stealth” stellar astrophysics mission returning fundamentally important and new information on eclipsing binaries, variable stars and, in particular, providing a treasure trove of data of all types of pulsating stars suitable for detailed Asteroseismology studies. With this in mind, current and planned telescopes and networks, new instruments and techniques (including interferometers) are discussed that can play important roles in our understanding of both binary star and exoplanet systems. Recent advances in detectors (e.g. laser frequency comb spectrographs), telescope networks (both small and large – e.g. Super-WASP, HAT-net, RoboNet, Las Combres Observatory Global Telescope (LCOGT) Network), wide field (panoramic) telescope systems (e.g. Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) and Pan-Starrs), huge telescopes (e.g. the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), the Overwhelming Large Telescope (OWL) and the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT)), and space missions, such as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the possible NASA Explorer Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS – recently approved for further study) and Gaia (due for launch during 2013) will all be discussed. Also highlighted are advances in interferometers (both on the ground and from space) and imaging now possible at sub-millimeter wavelengths from the Extremely Long Array (ELVA) and Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA). High precision Doppler spectroscopy, for example with HARPS, HIRES and more recently the Carnegie Planet Finder Spectrograph, are currently returning RVs typically better than ~2-m/s for some brighter exoplanet systems. But soon it should be possible to measure Doppler shifts as small as ~10-cm/s – sufficiently sensitive for detecting Earth-size planets. Also briefly discussed is the impact these instruments will have on the study of eclipsing binaries, along with future possibilities of utilizing methods from the emerging field of Astroinformatics, including: the Virtual Observatory (VO) and the possibilities of analyzing these huge datasets using Neural Network (NN) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies.

We summarize the fifty-year concerted effort to place the “activity” of the Sun in the context of the stars. As a working definition of solar activity in the context of stars, we adopt those globally–observable variations on time scales below thermal time scales, of ~105 yr for the convection zone. So defined, activity is dominated by magnetic–field evolution, including the 22–year Hale cycle, the typical time it takes for the quasi-periodic reversal in which the global magnetic–field takes place. This is accompanied by sunspot variations with 11 year periods, known since the time of Schwabe, as well as faster variations due to rotation of active regions and flaring. “Diagnostics and indices” are terms given to the indirect signatures of varying magnetic–fields, including the photometric (broad-band) variations associated with the sunspot cycle, and variations of the accompanying heated plasma in higher layers of stellar atmospheres seen at special optical wavelengths, and UV and X-ray wavelengths. Our attention is also focussed on the theme of the Symposium by examining evidence for deep and extended minima of stars, and placing the 70–year long solar Maunder Minimum into a stellar context.

The locations of massive stars (≥ 8M⊙) within their host galaxies is reviewed. These range from distributed OB associations to dense star clusters within giant Hii regions. A comparison between massive stars and the environments of core-collapse supernovae and long duration Gamma Ray Bursts is made, both at low and high redshift. We also address the question of the upper stellar mass limit, since very massive stars (VMS, Minit ≫ 100M⊙) may produce exceptionally bright core-collapse supernovae or pair instability supernovae.

The current state-of-the-art of population synthesis is reviewed. The field is currently undergoing major revisions with the recognition of several key processes as new critical ingredients. Stochastic effects can artificially enhance or suppress certain evolutionary phases and/or stellar mass regimes and introduce systematic biases in, e.g., the determination of the stellar initial mass function. Post-main-sequence evolution is often associated with irregular variations of stellar properties on ultra-short time-scales. Examples are asymptotic giant branch stars and luminous blue variables, both of which are poorly treated in the models. Stars rarely form in isolation, and the fraction of truly single stars may be very small. Therefore, stellar multiplicity must be accounted for since many systems will develop tidal interaction over the course of their evolution. Last but not least, stellar rotation can drastically increase stellar temperatures and luminosities, which in turn leads to revised mass-to-light ratios in population synthesis models.

Over the last decade Galactic planetary nebula discoveries have entered a golden age due to the emergence of high sensitivity, high resolution narrow-band surveys of the Galactic plane. These have been coupled with access to complimentary, deep, multi-wavelength surveys across near-IR, mid-IR and radio regimes in particular from both ground-based and space-based telescopes. These have provided powerful diagnostic and discovery capabilities. In this review these advances are put in the context of what has gone before, what we are uncovering now and through the window of opportunity that awaits in the future. The astrophysical potential of this brief but key phase of late stage stellar evolution is finally being realised.

This essay draws on the skeptical opinions that some historians of science have of archaeoastronomy, on historians' changing interpretations of proper historical method, and on their varied understandings of the nature of science to discuss how these methodological issues apply to archaeoastronomy. The essay argues that archaeoastronomical research should bear as much attention to the external context of early astronomies as it does to their internal content, suggesting specifically that insights into the origins of science can be gained by paying greater attention to the practitioners of early astronomies—to the skywatchers.

The venerable study of cosmic explosions is over a century old. However, until recently, there has existed a glaring six-magnitude luminosity gap between the brightest novae and faintest supernovae. To find optical transients that are fainter, faster, and rarer than supernovae, we designed a systematic search: the Palomar Transient Factory. Theorists predict a variety of mechanisms to produce transients in the gap and observers have the best chance of finding them in the local universe. Here I present discoveries and unique physics of cosmic explosions that bridge this gap between novae and supernovae.

The goal of the division is to address the scientific issues that were developed at the 2009 IAU General Assembly in Rio de Janeiro. These are:

• • Astronomical constants

• —Gaussian gravitational constant, Astronomical Unit, GMSun, geodesic precession-nutation

• • Astronomical software

• • Solar System Ephemerides

• —Pulsar research

• —Comparison of dynamical reference frames

• • Future Optical Reference Frame

• • Future Radio Reference Frame

• • Exoplanets

• —Detection

• —Dynamics

• • Predictions of Earth orientation

• • Units of measurements for astronomical quantities in relativistic context

• • Astronomical units in the relativistic framework

• • Time-dependent ecliptic in the GCRS

• • Asteroid masses

• • Review of space missions

• • Detection of gravitational waves

• • VLBI on the Moon

• • Real time electronic access to UT1-UTC

Over the last 20 years, we have discovered that we live in a molecular Universe: A Universe with a rich and varied organic inventory; A Universe where molecules are abundant and widespread; A Universe where molecules play a central role in key processes that dominate the structure and evolution of galaxies; A Universe where molecules provide convenient thermometers and barometers to probe local physical conditions; A Universe where molecules can work together to form such complex species as you and me. Understanding the origin and evolution of interstellar and circumstellar molecules is thus key to understanding the Universe around us and our place in it and has become a fundamental goal of modern astrophysics. This review focuses on the organic inventory and the chemical processes that may play a role in stablishing molecular complexity in regions of planet formation.