This volume contains the updated and expanded lecture notes of the 37th Saas-Fee Advanced Course organised by the Swiss Society for Astrophysics and Astronomy. It offers the most comprehensive and up to date review of one of the hottest research topics in astrophysics - how our Milky Way galaxy formed. Joss Bland-Hawthorn & Ken Freeman lectured on Near Field Cosmology - The Origin of the Galaxy and the Local Group. Francesca Matteucci’s chapter is on Chemical evolution of the Milky Way and its Satellites. As designed by the SSAA, books in this series – and this one too – are targeted at graduate and PhD students and young researchers in astronomy, astrophysics and cosmology. Lecturers and researchers entering the field will also benefit from the book.

This book contains the proceedings of the International Astronomical Union Colloquium no. 195, held in Torino, Italy in 2004. The meeting investigated the formation of galaxies within a full cosmological context, focusing on the outer regions of galaxy clusters. The observed correlation of optical and radio properties of galaxies with their environment indicates that the formation and evolution of galaxies is intimately linked to the formation of large scale structure. With chapters written by leading authorities in the field, this timely volume investigates the role of the environment in determining the properties of galaxies. It describes the distribution of matter and galaxies on the largest scales in the Universe, the processes of cluster and galaxy formation, their role and interplay. This is a valuable collection of review articles for professional astronomers.

Galaxies have a history. This has become clear from recent sky surveys showing that distant galaxies, formed early in the life of the Universe, differ from the nearby ones. This book contains the proceedings of a 2000 conference addressing observational clues in this area.

The enormously powerful phenomena of starbursts are examined in this book. These spectacular star-forming events are seen on large scales in some galaxies, often triggered by galactic interactions. An intriguing implication of starburst research is that active galactic nuclei (AGN) may not be powered by accreting black holes. Instead theories are presented where compact powerhouses of dust-enshrouded star formation lie at the core of AGN, with supernovae exploding roughly once per year within massive nuclear concentrations of gas. This book collects articles from a timely international conference in Elba, Italy, in 1992; these comprise a thorough review of the most important developments in galactic-scale star formation since the starburst revolution of the late 1980s. This text will introduce graduate students to this exciting area and keep experts apace with rapid developments in it.

A coherent introduction for researchers in astronomy, particle physics, and cosmology on the formation and evolution of galaxies.

On the occasion of the retirement of Ulrich Schwarz, a symposium was held in Groningen in May of 1996, celebrating his contributions to the study of the int- stellar medium, including his work on the high-velocity clouds. The coming together of many specialists in the latter ?eld prompted the idea of compiling a book c- taining their contributions, and summarizing the status of our understanding of the high-velocity cloud phenomenon. This seemed especially worthwhile at the time, since many exciting developments were taking place. After the discovery of some H i clouds with high velocities, about 40 years ago, the subject had been dominated by 21-cm observations of H i emission. Starting in the mid-1980s much progress was being made because of the availability of new instruments, such as large ground-based optical telescopes and UV observatories in space. The connections between the work on high-velocity clouds and other studies of the properties of the (hot) interstellar medium also became clearer.