State of the Universe 2008

The aim of the State of the Universe annuals is to provide an annual astronomy review suitable for the popular science level reader to be published every September. The book will cover all major astronomical news on topics beyond the Solar System and place them in the context of the longer term goals of astronomers and astrophysicists around the world. The aim is to capture the excitement and vibrancy of modern astronomical research. This section also includes web links for all major news stories, providing a bridge between the public news stories and the actual research web sites. The invited contributions which make up the second half of the annual each year will cover a variety of topics and are written to appeal to a wide readership. These are written by leading astronomers or science writers. TOC:Authors Preface.- Monthly News.- American Astronomical Society Conference update: Martin Ratcliffe.- Features.- The state of the universe: James Kaler.- Topic under review: Carolyn C Petersen.- Formation of planetary systems: James Graham and Paul Kalas.- Chandra review: Wallace Tucker.- NRAO story: David Finlay.- Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Timothy Beers.- The state of the Hubble Space Telescope (servicing mission): Chris Blades.- The state of funding for science: Phil Plait.- Scale of the Universe: Alex Filippenko.- 400 years of the Telescope: Roger Angel.- Star formation: Lisa Rebull.- Current Optical Telescopes.- Future Telescopes.- Current Radio, IR and Sub-millimeter Telescopes.- Future Radio, IR and Sub-millimeter Telescopes.- Optical Interferometers.- Space observatories.