Table of Contents

# Cosmology and the Big Bang: # The Paradigm of Inflation (J Garcia-Bellido) # Small Scales, Big Issues for Cold Dark Matter (A J Benson) # Violence and Black Holes in the Hearts of Galaxies (C G Mundell) # Probing the Universe: # Quest for Gravitational Waves (B S Sathyaprakash) # Strong-Field Tests of Relativistic Gravity with Pulsars (M Kramer) # Gamma-Ray Bursts as Cosmological Probes (N R Tanvir) # Stars and Conditions for Life: # Gamma-Ray Bursts (D Lazzati) # Astrophysical Dust (M Gray) # Extrasolar Planets (H R A Jones & J S Jenkins) # Solar System and Climate Change: # Our Solar System (A Coates) # The Solar Dynamo (S Tobias) # Explosions on the Sun (L K Harra) # and other papers