The discovery of planets around stars other than the Sun within the past 15 years has opened up one of the largest and most exciting new fields in modern astronomy. The transit method of detecting exoplanets has revealed more information about individual planets than any other method of detection. This volume, the proceedings of IAU Symposium 253, contains a description of the latest development in the field of transiting extrasolar planets. Topical reviews and short contributions from more than one hundred authors present the latest results in the field, from the photometric transit searches for transiting planets, through observational studies of these planets, to the consequences for theories of planet formation, evolution and planetary atmospheres. Presenting the latest research, it is an important resource for graduate students and researchers working in astronomy and planetary sciences.

A complete record of the formal organisational and administrative proceedings of the XXVII General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union.

Taking a transdisciplinary approach to seismology, this unique book reviews the most recent developments in planetary seismology, helioseismology, and asteroseismology.

IAU C196 coincided with the 8 June 2004 transit of Venus, producing the exciting, eclectic mix that can be found in these proceedings: the amazing history of the English North-country astronomers of the seventeenth century; the AU at a precision of 1.4 m; the explanation for the infamous black drop effect; a possible Mayan observation of a transit of Venus in the thirteenth century; the vexed question of leap seconds and time scales; history, distances, parallaxes, the solar system at exquisite precision and future space missions that will revolutionize astronomy.

An astronomy professor at Harvard University discusses the possibilities of finding other worlds that sustain alien life forms, citing recent breakthroughs in biology and exoplanetary astronomy, including the recent discovery of arsenic-based bacteria in a California lake.