The Protostars and Planets V conference was held on the big island of Hawaii on October 24-28, 2005. The conference attracted 805 participants, half of which were from 30 countries outside the United States. This conference, which is held every half dozen years or so, is times so that very substantial progress in a field can be made.
This book, which contains some 58 chapters which correspond to the talks given at the conference and together they represent the state of the art in our present understanding of star and planet formation, young stars, and the early solar system.
Among the major strides made between IV and V include:
. The number of extra solar planets has grown by a factor of 10.
Multiple plants being discovered around some suns.
.New submillimeter detectors.
.Sophisticated numerical simulations on ever-more-powerful computers.
.X-Ray studies of star-forming regions.
.Brown dwarfs has now become part of mainstream astrophysics.
.Much new research into comets and the Kuiper belt.
.Refined dating techniques that established an age of our solar system of 4567 million years.