I. Neill Reid - Böcker

Astrobiology is one of the hottest areas of current research, reflecting not only impressive advances in the understanding of the origin of life but also the discovery of over 100 extrasolar planets in recent years. This volume is based on a meeting held in 2002 at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which aimed to lay the astrophysical groundwork for locating habitable places in the Universe. Written by leading scientists in the field, it covers a range of topics relevant to the search for life in the Universe, including: cosmology and its implications for the emergence of life, the habitable zone in the Milky Way Galaxy, the formation of stars and planets, the study of interstellar and interplanetary matter, searches for extrasolar planets, the synthesis of organic material in space, and spectroscopic signatures that could be used to detect life. This is an invaluable resource for both professional researchers and graduate students.

The importance of wide-field imaging in astronomy has never been so evident. The deep photographic surveys of the sky are nearing completion. The advent of large-format solid state detectors will provide further deep digital sky survey data. Optical surveys of the sky are being complemented by surveys in other wavebands of the electromagnetic spectrum, principally in the X-ray and near-infrared. The mass of digital data being gathered is driving the need for mass-storage archival capability, and for rapid capabilities in data acquisitioning and processing. New techniques are being developed to optimize the extraction of the information content. The quality and quantity of data now available to astronomers are enabling new breakthroughs in many fields, such as studies of the structure of our own galaxy and properties of nearby galaxies, the large-scale distribution of galaxies and the nature of the mass-content of the Universe. These facets of wide-field astronomy are brought together in this book.