The present status and projected two year developments for the Owens Valley Millimeter Array are described and a brief summary of the astronomical research is presented.

Collisions of asteroids and among Zodiacal cloud particles produce large amounts of submicron-sized debris, much of which is immediately ejected from our solar system by electromagnetic forces. We investigate the trajectories of tiny grains started on circular uninclined orbits within the Zodiacal cloud and find that they reach high ecliptic latitudes during the current configuration of the solar magnetic.field, perhaps accounting for particles detected by the Ulysses spacecraft at latitudes up to 80°. When the solar magnetic field is reversed, particles are more strongly confined to the ecliptic plane and escape the solar system less readily. Both fluxes and spatial densities of sub-micron sized Zodiacal dust particles vary with time through the dependence of orbital dynamics on the 22-year solar cycle.

The galactic clusters and the exciting stars of H II regions are powerful indicators of the spiral structure since these objects lie on or very close to the zero age main sequence (ZAMS). For clusters this behaviour can be confirmed by direct photometric observation. The exciting stars of H II regions are probably so young as not to have evolved from the ZAMS. The coincidence of these objects with the ZAMS indicates that there is little scattering in the absolute magnitudes and, as a consequence, little uncertainty in the determination of distance. This fact reveals itself very distinctly in the case of H II regions, whose exciting stars define the spiral structure considerably better than the stars of the same early spectral types but not connected with H II regions.

We have examined the behavior of a number of bolides in Earth's atmosphere from the standpoint of recent entry modeling techniques. The entry modeling has been carried out including a triggered progressive fragmentation model (TPFM) which maintains a maximum drag orientation for the fragments in either the collective or a non-collective wake limit during entry (ReVelle 2004). Specifically in this paper, we have proposed a new method of estimating the terminal bolide mass and have compared it against the corresponding single-body mass loss prediction. A new expression for the terminal mass is proposed that corrects the mass of the body for the changing mass to area ratio during the fragmentation process. As a result of this new work we have found two very interesting features that correspond very closely to those found from a direct analysis of the observational data. These include an instantaneous mass that closely resembles that directly observed and an ablation coefficient behavior that also strongly resembles meteor observations (such as those found recently by Ceplecha & ReVelle 2005). During fragmentation, the apparent ablation coefficient has now been shown to decrease dramatically approaching the intrinsic ablation coefficient proposed by Ceplecha & ReVelle (2005). In our modeling we have assumed a breakup into equal size fragments that are consistently and progressively multiples of two of the original unbroken leading piece. Had we assumed a multitude of many much smaller pieces that made up the totality of the original body, our predicted ablation coefficient would indeed have approached the very small intrinsic ablation parameter values predicted by Ceplecha and ReVelle. This is especially evident in the case of Sumava, but is also true in a number of other cases as well. The bolides whose properties have been modeled using our detailed entry code including a prediction of the panchromatic luminosity consist of the 1965 Revelstoke meteorite fall (Folinsbee 1967; Carr 1970; Shoemaker 1983), the 1974 Sumava fireball and the 1991 Benesov fireball as presented in Borovička & Spurný (1996) and in Borovička et al. (1998), the Tagish Lake meteorite fall of January 8, 2000 (Brown et al. 2002), the March 9, 2002 Park Forest meteorite fall (Brown et al. 2004), the June 6, 2002 Mediterranean (Crete) bolide as presented in Brown et al. (2002) and finally the September 4, 2004 Antarctic bolide respectively (Klekociuk et al. 2005). A self-consistent assessment of the detailed properties of each of the fireballs was made using all available information for each event. In the future, more reliable estimates of all of the necessary source parameters (including their overall degree of bulk porosity) will be made if all channels of information are reliably retrieved for bolide events (channels such as acoustic-gravity waves and specifically its infrasound emission, seismic waves, satellite optical and IR data, ground-based spectroscopy, ground-based photometry and radiometry, VLF radiation, meteorite fragment recovery, etc.).

For the past seven years a large, international team of astrophysicists and atomic physicists has been engaged in the systematic exploration and analysis of the extraordinary spectrum of one chemically-peculiar star, chi Lupi (B9.5pHgMn + A2 Vm). The observational data consist of 345 Ã of the star’s ultraviolet spectrum acquired with the Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph (GHRS) on board the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) at a resolving power of approximately 90,000 and an average S/N ratio of about 75 in the continuum. These data were supplemented with new optical-wavelength echelle spectra obtained at the AAT and at KPNO[l]. We have named this study “The x Lupi Pathfinder Project”, because it is in many respects similar to the initial exploration of a strange new land – never before has the ultraviolet spectrum of an ultra-sharp-lined star been observed at this level of detail and accuracy.

We examine the source properties of X-class soft X-ray flares that were not associated with coronal mass ejections (CMEs). All the flares were associated with intense microwave bursts implying the production of high energy electrons. However, most (85%) of the flares were not associated with metric type III bursts, even though open field lines existed in all but two of the active regions. The X-class flares seem to be truly confined because there was no material ejection (thermal or nonthermal) away from the flaring region into space.

The theory of plasma emission and of electron cyclotron maser emission, and their applications to solar radio bursts and to Jupiter's decametric radioation (DAM) and the Earth's auroral kilometric radiation (AKR) are reviewed, emphasizing the early literature and problems that remain unresolved. It is pointed out that there are quantitative measures of coherence in radio astronomy that have yet to be explored either observationally or theoretically.

Our understanding of the evolution of Central Stars of Planetary Nebulae (CPN) has made considerable progress during the last years. This was possible since consistent computations through the asymptotic giant branch (AGB), with thermal pulses and (in some cases) mass loss taken into account, became available (Schönberner, 1979, 1983; Kovetz and Harpaz, 1981; Harpaz and Kovetz, 1981; Iben, 1982, 1984; Wood and Faulkner, 1986). It turned out that the evolution depends very sensitively on the inital conditions on the AGB. More precisely, the evolution of an AGB remnant is a function of the phase of the thermal-pulse cycle during which this remnant was created on the tip of the AGB by the planetary-nebula (PN) formation process (Iben, 1984, 1987). This was first shown by Schönberner (1979), and then fully explored by Iben (1984). In short, two major modes of PAGB evolution to the white dwarf stage are possible, according to the two main phases of a thermally pulsing AGB star: the hydrogen-burning or helium-burning mode. If, for instance, the PN formation, i.e. the removal of the stellar envelope by mass loss, happens during a luminosity peak that follows a thermal pulse of the helium-burning shell, the remnant leaves the AGB while still burning helium as the main energy supplier (Härm and Schwarzschild, 1975). On the other hand, PN formation may also occur during the quiescent hydrogen-burning phase on the AGB, and the remnant continues then to burn mainly hydrogen on its way to becoming a white dwarf.

Recent observational studies of intermediate- and high-mass star-forming regions at submillimeter and infrared wavelengths are reviewed, and chemical diagnostics of the different physical components associated with young stellar objects are summarized. Procedures for determining the temperature, density and abundance profiles in the envelopes are outlined. A detailed study of a set of infrared-bright massive young stars reveals systematic increases in the gas/solid ratios, the abundances of evaporated molecules, and the fraction of heated ices with increasing temperature. Since these diverse phenomena involve a range of temperatures from < 100 K to 1000 K, the enhanced temperatures must be communicated to both the inner and outer parts of the envelopes. This ‘global heating’ plausibly results from the gradual dispersion of the envelopes with time. Similarities and differences with low-mass YSOs are discussed. The availability of accurate physical models will allow chemical models of ice evaporation followed by ‘hot core’ chemistry to be tested in detail.

The local planetary nebula (PN) census is dominated by extremely evolved examples, and until recently, was incomplete. New discoveries from the AAO/UKST H$\alpha$ Survey and SHASSA, have partially remedied this problem. In addition, we find that some currently accepted nearby PNe are in fact Strömgren spheres in the ISM ionised by a hot white dwarf. Distance estimates for a robust sample of calibrating PNe from the literature, plus new distances for a number of highly evolved PNe, have allowed a new H$\alpha$ surface brightness – radius relationship to be devised as a useful distance indicator. It covers $>$6 dex in SB, and while the spread in SB is $\sim$1 dex at a given radius, optically thick (mainly bipolar and bipolar-core) PNe tend to populate the upper bound of the trend, while common-envelope PNe and very high-excitation PNe form a sharp lower boundary. Hence, distances can be estimated for all remaining local PNe, allowing the definition of a relatively complete census of PNe in the solar neighbourhood within 1.0 kpc. This provides a first look at the faint end of the PN luminosity function, and new estimates of the space density, scale height, total number, and birth rate of Galactic PNe.

A planetary nebula consists mainly of gas ejected slowly by a red giant. Its dynamics is dominated by the hot central star which is left behind later. In particular a fast wind from this star forms a bubble of hot gas which fills the inner part of the nebula and pushes the envelope into a shell. This shell remains only partly ionized for a considerable time. Its non-ionized part is subject to a Rayleigh-Taylor instability, and is expected to break up into fragments which remain behind in the HII part of the nebula.

The centimeter wavelength continuum radiation seen toward the Galactic center (Figure 1) is a mixture of thermal (free-free) and nonthermal (synchrotron) radiation which originates in the nucleus and along the line-of-sight. In this review we discuss only the thermal emission (also see Mezger 1974 and Oort 1977). High-frequency radio continuum and recombination line observations show that the thermal radiation comes from extend, low-density (ELD) HII, and a number of giant “radio HII regions” (see Mezger 1978 for definitions). The approximate half-power contour of the ELD HII (labelled EI in Fig. 1), probably represents a superposition of evolved and expanded HII regions. Thermal radiation outside EI comes predominantly from along the line-of-sight (see Pauls and Mezger 1975).

I review measurements of heavy element abundances within H II regions in the Magellanic Clouds, highlighting in particular improved determinations of carbon abundances based on UV spectroscopy with Hubble Space Telescope. In general, the Magellanic Cloud H II regions show average underabundances in O, Ne, and S (relative to their Galactic counterparts) that are similar to those measured in Magellanic Cloud stars. However, comparison of stars and ionized gas shows discrepancies in C and N abundances that may be related to recently recognized mixing processes that may be operating in massive stars.

The discovery via gravitational waves of binary black hole systems with total masses greater than 60Mʘ has raised interesting questions for stellar evolution theory. Among the most promising formation channels for these systems is one involving a common envelope binary containing a low metallicity, core helium burning star with mass ⁓30 – 40Mʘ and a black hole with mass ⁓30 – 40Mʘ. For this channel to be viable, the common envelope binary must eject more than half the giant star’s mass and reduce its orbital separation by as much as a factor of 80. We discuss issues faced in numerically simulating the common envelope evolution of such systems and present a 3D AMR simulation of the dynamical inspiral of a low-metallicity red supergiant with a massive black hole companion.

We present new M and L-dwarfs confirmed through follow-up of 2MASS color-selected objects with the CorMASS near-infrared spectrograph (R ˜ 300) on the Palomar 60-inch telescope as part of a continuing follow-up survey. Most of the objects are bright (Ks < 13).

I describe a model of energetic gamma ray and neutrino emission in blazars which is consistent with most of the gamma-ray observations, and use this model to estimate the diffuse intensity of high energy neutrinos from blazars.

The study of the optical counterparts to the radio jets has been the subject of a number of observing programs with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). We know that these jets play a fundamental role in transporting energy from the central source to the extended radio lobes. Observations at optical and ultraviolet wavelengths with the HST are essential to obtain spatial resolutions similar to, or better than, those achieved in the radio band and, thus, provide the possibility of directly comparing the sites and mechanisms responsible for the emission at these different wavelengths.

The WAPP is a new Pulsar Processor for Arecibo Observatory. Key features are wideband operation (100 MHz) and good time resolution (16 microseconds).

Over the past ten years, there has been a revolution in our understanding of massive young stellar clusters in the Galaxy. Initially, there were no known examples having masses >104, yet we now know that there are at least a half dozen such clusters in the Galaxy. In all but one case, the masses have been determined through infrared observations. Several had been identified as clusters long ago, but their massive natures were only recently determined. Presumably, we are just scratching the surface, and we might look forward to having statistically significant samples of coeval massive stars at all important stages of stellar evolution in the near future. I review the efforts that have led to this dramatic turn of events and the growing sample of young massive clusters in the Galaxy.