Related papers: Galactic History: Formation and Evolution
The stellar populations of galaxies contain a wealth of detailed information. From the youngest, most massive stars, to almost invisible remnants, the history of star formation is encoded in the stars that make up a galaxy. Extracting some,…
We present an overview of the main characteristics of several spectroscopic surveys designed to advance our understanding of the physical properties and evolution of massive stars. We also summarize key results obtained from the analysis of…
The combination of huge databases of galaxy spectra and advances in evolutionary synthesis models in the past few years has renewed interest in an old question: How to estimate the star formation history of a galaxy out of its integrated…
We are briefly introducing the most important ingredients to study galactic evolution. In particular the roles of star formation, nucleosynthesis and gas flows. Then we are discussing the two different approaches to galactic evolution: the…
The last 20 years have seen an explosion in our understanding of the large-scale distribution and motions of galaxies in the nearby universe. The field has moved from a largely qualitative, morphological description of the structures seen…
Star formation rate and accummulated stellar mass are two fundamental physical quantities that describe the evolutionary state of a forming galaxy. Two recent attempts to determine the relationship between these quantities, by interpreting…
We propose to the community a comprehensive UV/optical/NIR imaging survey of Galactic star formation regions to probe all aspects of the star formation process. The primary goal of such a study is to understand the evolution of…
In this review I will describe a number of recent advances in extragalactic astronomy. First of all I will describe our current best estimates of the star formation history of the Universe. Then I will describe measurements of local…
I set the stage for discussion of the stellar populations in interacting galaxies by looking back over the slow development of our understanding of these systems. From early anecdotal collections, to systematic cataloging, and finally to…
The two major functions in galaxy evolution that we would like to measure are the stellar populations in galaxies, and their time-derivative, the star formation rate. Especially at redshifts above 1, both of these measures are benefiting…
The galaxies of the Local Group that are currently forming stars can serve as our laboratories for understanding star formation and the evolution of massive stars. In this talk I will summarize what I think we've learned about these topics…
Stars, and collections of stars, encode rich signatures of stellar physics and galaxy evolution. With properties influenced by both their environment and intrinsic nature, stars retain information about astrophysical phenomena that are not…
It is well established in the local Universe that regions of high star-formation rate are dusty. As a result of this physical causal link, galaxies of increasing current star formation activity emit a larger proportion of their bolometric…
The observable characteristics and subsequent evolution of young stellar populations is dominated by their massive stars. As our understanding of those massive stars and the factors affecting their evolution improves, so our interpretation…
The evolution of irregular galaxies is examined from two points of view: on the one hand, models of galactic chemical evolution have been computed and their predictions compared with the corresponding observational data on the element…
Galaxies cover a wide range of masses and star formation histories. In this review, I summarize some of the evolutionary key features of common galaxy types. At the high-mass end, very rapid, efficient early star formation is observed,…
The last decade has seen enormous progress in understanding the structure of the Milky Way and neighboring galaxies via the production of large-scale digital surveys of the sky like 2MASS and SDSS, as well as specialized, counterpart…
I present an overview of the science goals and achievements of ongoing spectroscopic surveys of individual stars in the nearby Universe. I include a brief discussion of the development of the field of Galactic Archaeology - using the fossil…
We present a review of recent studies of the formation and evolution of the Milky Way galaxy, in particular based on large samples of non-kinematically selected stars with available proper motions. The Milky Way is argued to be a reasonable…
Galaxy formation is at the heart of our understanding of cosmic evolution. Although there is a consensus that galaxies emerged from the expanding matter background by gravitational instability of primordial fluctuations, a number of…