At the XXIX IAU General Assembly held in Honolulu from 3-14 August 2015, the meetings known as Special Sessions and Joint Discussions were replaced by new 'Focus Meetings'. Astronomy in Focus XXIXB presents the most relevant contributions from the Focus Meetings together with summaries of all the accepted papers and posters. It covers the following topics: the legacy of Planck; x-ray surveys of the hot and energetic cosmos; stellar physics in galaxies; stellar explosions; gravitational waves and structure formation; the search for water and life's building blocks; red supergiants in the local...

At the XXIX IAU General Assembly held in Honolulu from 3-14 August 2015, the meetings known as Special Sessions and Joint Discussions were replaced by new 'Focus Meetings'. Astronomy in Focus XXIXA presents the most relevant contributions from the Focus Meetings together with summaries of all the accepted papers and posters. It covers the meetings on the following areas: dynamical problems in extrasolar planet science; astronomical heritage; scholarly publishing in astronomy; statistics and exoplanets; the exploration of small worlds; ground and space astrophysics and heliophysics; laboratory...

Research on massive stars is undergoing a period of rapid progress, with long-held convictions being shown to be incomplete. While these stars are relatively few in number, they are the main driver of chemical and dynamical evolution in galaxies through their stellar winds and explosive deaths in core-collapse supernovae. Furthermore the impact of massive stars is widely recognized in many areas, as they are often used as tools to interpret the conditions and processes arising in different environments. In parallel, the development of new instrumentation, analysis techniques and dedicated...

Planetary nebulae, glowing shells of ionized gas, are the spectacular products of the evolution of low- and intermediate-mass stars. For astrophysicists, they are important laboratories for the understanding of atomic, molecular, dust, and plasma processes in different cosmic environments; they enable the exploration of the fundamental physics of single and binary star evolution including nucleosynthesis, rotation, mass transfer and loss, and magnetic fields; and they help trace stellar populations, the kinematics, and chemistry of galaxies including our own galaxy, the Milky Way. This volume...

Black holes lie at the heart of some of the most fascinating astrophysical phenomena. IAU Symposium 324 marked the 100th anniversary of Schwarzschild's solution of Einstein's field equations predicting the existence of black holes. Our understanding of black holes has come an impressively long way since then, with the last major discovery being coalescing black holes producing gravitational waves, also predicted in 1916. In this volume, observational and theoretical experts discuss the current state-of-the-art in the astrophysics of black-hole systems and their exploitation in testing...

IAU S325 explores the way that astronomy is changing, or has changed, to become an ever more data-driven, computational science.

Solar activity has become of increasing importance in our modern society, as many aspects of today's technology could be affected by eruptive phenomena associated with solar magnetic variability. State of the art solar instrumentation is revealing the dynamics of the Sun with unprecedented temporal and spatial resolutions. This volume includes recent results in solar physics research presented at the IAU Symposium 327, the first IAU symposium held in Colombia, in the historical city of Cartagena de Indias, one of the oldest in the Americas. Its main scientific goal was to discuss recent...

The variable activity of stars such as the Sun is mediated through stellar magnetic fields, radiative and energetic particle fluxes, stellar winds and magnetic storms manifested as stellar flares and coronal mass ejections. This activity influences planetary atmospheres, climate and habitability: on the one hand it drives life-sustaining processes on planets, but on the other hand can adversely impact planetary environments rendering them uninhabitable. Studies of this intimate relationship between the parent star, its astrosphere and the planets that it hosts have reached a certain level of...

The cataclysmic stellar explosion SN 1987A, visible to naked eye, was the nearest and brightest supernova witnessed since the invention of the telescope four centuries ago. This volume deals with supernovae and their remnants, in terms of exceptional phenomena that produce and release high-energy nuclei and particles. Marking the thirtieth anniversary of SN 1987A, the proceedings of IAU Symposium 331 introduce our accumulating knowledge on these central sources in many active fields of investigation: stellar evolution and the diversity of supernova progenitors and their properties, explosive...

Reviews ESA's Gaia mission activities to measure the distances and ages of a billion stars with unprecedented accuracy.