The sequence that brings matter from a molecular cloud to a fully developed star plus planetary system seems to be a unique and rich chemistry laboratory where, step by step, molecular complexity increases. During the cold pre-collapse phase, atoms and simple molecules, like CO, freeze out onto the dust grains, forming icy mantles. Reactions on the grain surfaces likely form hydrogenated molecules (notably H2O, CH4, H2CO, CH3OH, and NH3) and perhaps even more complex organic molecules. The hallmark of this era is the super-deuteration phenomenon, i. e. the abnormal enhancement of molecules containing one or more D atoms instead of H atoms, by up to 13 orders of magnitude with respect to the cosmic elemental D/H ratio (~10−5). The frozen molecules are released into the gas upon warming by the forming star and undergo reactions which further increase the molecular complexity, leading to several complex organic molecules. Products of this efficient chemical factory are observed in the hot corinos, which are warm (~100 K), dense (~107–108 cm−3) solar-system-sized regions at the centre of the collapsing envelopes of solar type protostars. In this contribution, I review what is known about the organic molecules in protostellar environments, with emphasis on the hot corinos, and how possibly the organic molecules formed at this stage may constitute an heritage for the forming planetary system.

Observations of the rotation periods of cool open cluster stars display a distinctive dichotomy when plotted against stellar mass/color. Other measures of stellar activity are also known to be dependent on stellar mass and structure, especially the onset and characteristics of convection zones. One proposal for understanding the observed rotation period dichotomy suggested dependencies on the moment of inertia of either the whole star or that of only the outer convection zone (Barnes 2003).

The moment of inertia of stars with the mass between 0.1Msun and 3.0Msun have been calculated using a version of Yale Stellar evolution code (aka YREC). Each star has been evolved from stellar birthline to the onset of the core He burning. For easy comparison to observations, we have calculated the isochrones of these quantities as well as the convective turnover time, of interest to the activity community.

The Commission 15 report was prepared primarily by the chairpersons of the two working groups: T. Yamamoto of the Comet Working Group and R. A. Gil-Hutton of the Minor Planet Working Group. In particular, the Comet section was produced by T. Yamamoto with the assistance of D. Bockelée-Morvan, H. Kawakita, and D. Prialnik, while the Minor Planet section was produced by R. A. Gil-Hutton with the assistance of A. Cellino, A. W. Harris (DLR), R. Jedicke, A.-C. Levasseur-Regourd, R. M. Schulz, T. B. Spahr, and P. Vernazza. W. F. Huebner was responsible for the Introduction. The final editing and merging of the various sections and subsections of the report was carried out by the Commission Secretary, D. C. Boice.

Considering that the main source of turbulence in the ISM medium are the explosions of supernovae (SNe), we explore here the role of SN shock front interactions with clouds on the star formation triggering in presence and in absence of magnetic field.

As a part of the ongoing H i survey by the consortium for Galactic studies with the Arecibo L-band Feed Array (GALFA-HI), we have recently imaged the tip of the MS and found several long filamentary structures. This demonstrates that the northern portion of the MS, which has been interacting with the Galactic halo for a long time, is more extended than previously thought and in the form of highly organized H i structures. The observed filaments, and especially the kinematic dichotomy of H i clouds observed for the first time, agree with predictions by the Connors, Kawata & Gibson (2006) tidal model. However, specific time-stamps in the history of the Magellanic System are required to explain these phenomena. The 20-degree long filaments are accompanied by a large population of small H i clouds. We investigate the observed properties of these clouds and explore various instabilities that affect a warm tail of gas trailing through the Galactic halo. Interestingly, if the observed H i structure is mainly due to thermal instability, then the tip of the MS is at a distance of ~70 kpc.

Starting from a few topical astrophysical questions which require the knowledge of the age of Pop I stars, we discuss the needed precision on the age in order to make progresses in these areas of research. Then we review the effects of various inputs of the stellar models on the age determination and try to identify those affecting the most the lifetimes of stars.

In this talk I revisit the problem of gas accretion onto minihalos after reionization. I show that primordial minihalos with vcir < 20 km s−1 stop accreting gas after reionization, as is usually assumed, but in virtue of their increasing concentration and the decreasing temperature of the intergalactic medium as redshift decreases, they have a late phase (at redshift z<2) of gas accretion and possibly star formation. As a result we expect that pre-reionization fossils have a more complex star formation history than previously envisioned. A signature of this model is a bimodal star formation history. The dwarf spheroidal galaxy Leo T, that inspired the present work, fits with this scenario. Another prediction of the model is the existence of a population of gas rich minihalos that never formed stars. A subset of compact high-velocity clouds may be identified as such objects but the bulk of them may still be undiscovered.

The known Rieger Periodicity (ranging in literature from 150 up to 160 days) is obvious in numerous solar indices. Many sub-harmonic periodicities have also been observed (128–, 102–, 78–, and 51 – days) in flare, sunspot, radio bursts, neutrino flux and flow data, coined as Rieger Type Periodicities (RTPs). Several attempts are focused to the discovery of their source, as well as the explanation of some intrinsic attributes that they present, such as their connection to extremely active flares, their temporal intermittency as well as their tendency to occur near solar maxima. In this paper, we link the X-ray flare observations made on Geosynchronous Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) to an existing theoretical model (Lou 2000), suggesting that the mechanism behind the Rieger Type Periodicities is the Rossby Type Waves. The enhanced data analysis methods used in this article (Scargle-Lomb periodogram and Weighted Wavelet Z-Transform) provide the proper resolution needed to argue that RTPs are present also in less energetic flares, contrary to what has been inferred from observations so far.

The Arcturus moving group is a well-populated example of phase space substructure within the disk of our Galaxy. With its large rotational lag (V = −100 kms−1), metal poor nature ([Fe/H] ~ −0.6) and significant age (10 Gyr) it belongs to the Galaxy's thick disk. Traditionally regarded as the remains of a dissolved open cluster, it has recently been suggested to be a remnant of a satellite accreted by our Galaxy.

We confirm via further kinematic studies using the Nordstöm et al. (2004), Schuster et al. (2004) and RAdial Velocity Experiment (RAVE) surveys (Steinmetz et al. 2004) the existence of the group, finding it to possibly favour negative U velocities and also possibly a solar-circle phenomenon. We undertook a high-resolution spectroscopic abundance study of Arcturus group members and candidates to investigate the origin of the group. Examining abundance of Fe, Mg, Ca, Ti, Cr, Ni, Zn, Ce, Nd, Sm and Gd for 134 stars we found that the group is chemically similar to disk stars and does not exhibit a clear chemical homogeneity.

The origin of the group still remains unresolved: the chemical results are consistent with a dynamical origin but do not entirely rule out a merger one. Certainly, the Arcturus group provides a challenge to our understanding of the nature and origin of the Galaxy's thick disk.

Accurately understanding the interior structure of extra-solar planets is critical for inferring their formation and evolution and resolving the origin of anomalous planetary radii. The internal density distribution of the planet has a direct effect on the star-planet orbit through the gravitational quadrupole of rotational and tidal bulges, measured by the planetary Love number (k2p, twice the apsidal motion constant). We find that the quadrupole of the planetary tidal bulges dominates the rate of apsidal precession of single very hot Jupiters by more than an order of magnitude over general relativity and the stellar quadrupole. For the shortest-period planets, the planetary interior induces precession of a few degrees per year. By investigating the full photometric signal of apsidal precession, we find that transit timing induces a relatively small signal compared to the changes in transit shapes. With its long baseline of ultra-precise photometry, the future space-based Kepler mission should be able to realistically detect the presence or absence of a core in very hot Jupiters with orbital eccentricities as low as e ~ 0.001. We show that the signal due to k2p is not degenerate with other parameters and has a unique signature on the transit light curve. This technique, outlined in more detail in Ragozzine & Wolf 2008 provides the first readily employed method for directly probing the interiors of extra-solar planets.

Magnetic fields are believed to play an important role in controlling the stability and contraction of molecular cloud cores. In the present study, magnetic fields of a cold pre-stellar core, Barnard 68, have been mapped based on wide-field near-infrared polarimetric observations of background stars. A distinct “hourglass-shaped” magnetic field is identified toward the core, as the observational evidence of magnetic field structure distorted by mass accumulation in a pre-stellar core. Our findings on the geometry of magnetic fields as well as the mass-to-magnetic flux ratio are presented.

The Magellanic Clouds are important templates for studying the role interstellar dust plays as actor and tracer of galaxy evolution. Due to their proximity, the Large and Small Magellanic clouds are uniquely suited to put detailed Galactic dust studies in a global context. With a metal abundance lower than that of the Sun, the Magellanic Clouds also permit to characterize interstellar matter composition and structure as a function of metallicity. The presentation of spectacular results from the AKARI and Spitzer surveys was one of the highlights of this Magellanic Clouds meeting. This paper puts these results in context. I discuss UV extinction and IR emission signatures of carbon and silicate dust. I present diverse evidence of dust processing in the ISM. I illustrate the correlation between the mm emission of dust, and gas column density using Milky Way surveys. I conclude with three main results. Dust in the SMC is not carbon poor. The composition of interstellar dust reflects its processing in interstellar space and thereby depends on local conditions and its past history. In the Magellanic Clouds, far-IR and sub-mm observations are indicating that there may be significantly more cold interstellar matter, cold H i and H2 gas, than estimated from H i and CO observations.

We devised a new method to estimate globular cluster absolute ages by adopting the knee of the bending of the lower main-sequence (MS) in the Near-Infrared (NIR) J, J - Ks color-magnitude diagram. The color difference between this feature and the Turn-Off point is strongly correlated to the cluster age. This method is marginally affected by distance and reddening uncertainties, and by the possible occurrence of differential reddening. Furthermore, the knee location does not depend on the cluster age and it is a robust theoretical prediction. We adopted accurate J, Ks-band photometry collected with both MAD/VLT and SOFI/NTT for the Galactic globular cluster NGC 3201 to identify the location of the knee at J~19.90 ±0.03 and J-Ks ~0.76±0.02 mag. The comparison with different sets of cluster isochrones, transformed adopting different Color–Temperature–Relations (CTRs), shows that the models are slightly redder than the observations for J > 19 mag. This difference could be due to the presence of a calibration drift or to a problem of the CTRs in this magnitude range.

This report is divided in four parts: the first part summarizes the activities of the Commission between September 2006 and June 2008; the second part reports on recent advances in the physical study of planets and satellites. However, instead of attempting to cover the large body of new knowledge gathered over the last three years, we have chosen to highlight just a few exciting results – on Mercury, the exploration of unchartered terrains with ground-based imaging and a new measurement of its libration parameters, some spectacular findings from the Cassini mission inside the Saturnian system, and the results of methane-band spectrophotometric monitoring of Saturn over the last 13 years; the third part summarizes future plans now being drawn by the various space agencies for the exploration of planets and satellites in the solar system; the last part tries to project the activities of the Commission over the period June 2008–August 2009, and to express a few thoughts concerning the future developments in the field, and the role of the Commission therein.

The most intriguing question related to the chemical evolution of protoplanetary disks is the genesis of pre-biotic organic molecules in the planet-forming zone. In this contribution we briefly review current observational knowledge of physical structure and chemical composition of disks and discuss whether organic molecules can be present in large amounts at the verge of planet formation. We predict that some molecules, including CO-bearing species such as H2CO, can be underabundant in inner regions of accreting protoplanetary disks around low-mass stars due to the high-energy stellar radiation and chemical processing on dust grain surfaces. These theoretical predictions are further compared with high-resolution observational data and the limitations of current models are discussed.

We present the spectral properties of a large sample of nearly face-on low surface brightness (LSB) disk galaxies selected from the SDSS-DR4 main galaxy sample. About 12,282 LSB galaxies have been selected from the photometry database with their B-band central surface brightness μ0(B) ranging from 22 to 24.5 mag arcsec−2. About 7000 of such LSBGs have measured emission lines ([OII]3727, [OIII]5007, Hβ, Hα, [NII]6583) with the S/N ratio greater than 5σ. Their spectral diagnostic diagram of [NII]/Hα vs. [OIII]/Hβ shows that ~89% of them are star-forming galaxies, and ~11% could be classified as AGNs. The relations of μ0(B) vs. 12+log(O/H) and μ0(B) vs. stellar masses M* of these star-forming LSB galaxies show that their O/H and M* increase following the increasing μ0(B). The majority of these LSBGs are on the higher branch of metallicity.

So far radial velocity measurements have discovered ~25 stars to host multiple planets. The statistics imply that many of the known hosts of transiting planets should have additional planets, yet none have been solidly detected. They will be soon, via complementary search methods of RV, transit-time variations of the known planet, and transits of the additional planet. When they are found, what can transit measurements add to studies of multiplanet dynamical evolution? First, mutual inclinations become measurable, for comparison to the solar system's disk-like configuration. Such measurements will give important constraints to planet-planet scattering models, just as the radial velocity measurements of eccentricity have done. Second, the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect measures stellar obliquity, which can be modified by two-planet dynamics with a tidally evolving inner planet. Third, transit-time variations are exquisitely sensitive to planets in mean motion resonance. Two planets differentially migrating in the disk can establish such resonances, and tidal evolution of the planets can break them, so the configuration and frequency of these resonances as a function of planetary parameters will constrain these processes.

We have studied spicules observed at the northern solar limb by using simultaneous high resolution image sequences. The images were obtained by Hinode/SOT (in the Ca II H passband) and TRACE (in the 1600 Å passband) during a coordinated campaign. Both data sets were reduced and then carefully co-aligned in order to compare the observed patterns in this highly dynamic region of the Sun. The identification of individual structures in both spectral bands allows us to trace their spatial and temporal behaviour. Persistent intensity variations at certain locations, indicate that at least some spicules have a recurrent behavior. Using wavelet analysis we investigate oscillatory phenomena along the axis of off-limb spicules and we construct 2-D maps of the solar limb with the observed oscillations.

Bulges come in two flavours – classical and pseudo. The principal characteristics of each flavour are summarised and their impact on discs is considered. Classical bulges probably inhibit the formation of stellar discs. Pseudobulges exchange angular momentum with stars and gas in their companion discs, and also with its embedding dark halo. Since the structure of a pseudobulge depends critically on its angular momentum, these exchanges are expected to modify the bulge. The consequences of this modification are not yet satisfactorily understood. The Galaxy has a pseudobulge. I review the manifestations of its interaction with the disc. More work is needed on the dynamics of gas near the bulge's corotation radius, and on tracing the stellar population in the inner few hundred parsecs of the Galaxy.

We present photometric evolution of galaxies in which, in addition to the stellar component, the effects of an evolving dusty interstellar medium have been included with particular care. Starting from the work of Calura, Pipino & Matteucci (2008), in which chemical evolution models have been used to study the evolution of both the gas and dust components of the interstellar medium in spiral, elliptical and irregular galaxies, it has been possible to combine these models with a spectrophotometric stellar synthesis code that includes dust reprocessing (GRASIL) (Silva 1998) to analyse the evolution of the Spectral Energy Distributions (SED) of these galaxies. We test our models against observed SEDs both in the local universe and at high redshift. The importance of following the dust evolution is investigated by comparing our results with those obtained by adopting simple assumptions to treat this component. Possible errors from assuming a Milky Way dust composition and a dust-to-gas ratio scaling with the metallicity particularly in young galaxies, ellipticals and low metallicity galaxies are highlighted.