TheinternationalconferenceHowdoestheGalaxywork? Agalactictertulia rd th with Don Cox and Ron Reynolds, was held during the week of 23 to 27 of June 2003 in the marvelous city of Granada, Spain. This week marked the beginningofoneofthehottestsummersthatwehaveeverlived, butincontrast, the meeting was one of the coolest events that we can remember First, it certainly wasa?rstclassscienti?creunion, withanexcellent program, talented speakers, and alive discussions in a friendly atmosphere. Second, the whole event was embedded in the passionate Andalucian way of life, a true tertulia, well...

This book gathers the invited conferences presented at the Thirteenth Joint European and National Astronomical Meeting (JENAM) organized by the - ropean Astronomical Society (EAS) and the Spanish Astronomical Society (Sociedad Espanola de Astronomia, SEA) and hosted by the Instituto de - trofisica de Andalucia (IAA - CSIC). The event, held from September 13 to 17, 2004 in Granada, was at the same time the Sixth Scienti c Meeting of the SEA. The proceedings of such national meetings are traditionally collected in a series of books generically entitled Highlights of Spanish Astrophysics, which...

Is the current state of our galaxy primarily the result of its initial conditions or is it the product of a lifetime of complex interactions with its environment? This volume presents papers dedicated to exploring this fundamental question and examines all the key physical processes involved in the formation and evolution of the Milky Way. A dozen invited review articles by international experts summarize our understanding to date while more than fifty topical research papers present the latest results. Together, these papers provide a state-of-the-art view of topical issues such as disk...