Planetary Systems: Formation, Evolution, and Detection : Proceedings of the First International Conference, held in Pasadena, California on December 8¿10, 1992

`Are there other planetary systems like ours? Other planets like ours? Is there life elsewhere in the Universe?' So asks Dr. Lew Allen Jr. in the Foreword. In December of 1992, theorists, observers, and instrument builders gathered at the California Institute of Technology to discuss the search for answers to these questions. The International Conference, entitled `Planetary Systems: Formation, Evolution, and Detection' and supported through NASA's newly formed TOPS (Toward Other Planetary Systems) program, was the first of a series of conferences uniting researchers across disciplines and political boundaries to share thoughts and information on planetary systems. The conference was sponsored by NASA, hosted by JPL at Caltech, and endorsed by the 1992 International Space Year Association.
These proceedings include discussions of topics ranging from stellar, disk, and planetary formation to new ways of searching for other stellar systems containing planets. The authors represent a wide range of nationalities, disciplines, and points of view. The second international conference took place in December of 1993.

The Search for Other Planets: Clues from the Solar System.- Formation and Evolution of Planets.- Possible Consequences of Absence of “Jupiters” in Planetary Systems.- Dust Blobs in the Solar Nebula-Primary Distended Atmosphere.- Formation and Properties of Fluffy Planetesimals.- Radial Migration of Planetesimals.- Very Low Mass Stars, Black Dwarfs and Planets.- Interaction of Planetary Nebulae with Prenebulae Debris.- Toward Planets around Neutron Stars.- On the Detection of Mutual Perturbations as Proof of Planets around PSR1257+12.- Planets around Pulsars: A Review.- Detection of Accreting Circumstellar Gas around Weak Emission-Line Herbig Ae/Be Stars.- The Evidence for Clumpy Accretion in the Herbig Ae Star Hr 5999.- Protoplanetary Dust Clouds in Disks of Herbig Ae/Be Stars.- Identification of a Collapsing Protostar.- Cometary-Like Bodies in the Protoplanetary Disk around ? Pictoris.- Synthetic Images of Proto-Planetary Disks around Young Stars.- New Observations of the ? Pictoris Circumstellar Disk with the Jhu Adaptive Optics Coronagraph.- Inner Part Observation of the ? Pictoris Disk.- The Detection and Study of Pre-Planetary Disks.- Millimeter Continuum Measurements of Circumstellar Dust around Very Young Low-Mass Stars.- The Search for Protostars Using Millimeter/Submillimeter Dust Emission as a Tracer.- Cold Dust around Chamaeleon Stars.- Cloudy Circumstellar Dust Shells around Young Variable Stars.- 10-?m Images and Spectra of T Tauri Stars.- The Nobeyama Millimeter Array Survey for Protoplanetary Disks around Protostar Candidates and T Tauri Stars in Taurus.- High-Precision Vlbi Astrometric Observations of Radio-Emitting Stars for Detection of Extra-Solar Planets.- Millimetre Photometry and Infrared Spectroscopy of Vega-Excess Stars.- Long, Accurate Time Series Measurements of Radial Velocities of Solar-Type Stars.- A High-Precision Radial-Velocity Survey for Other Planetary Systems.- Multiplex Approach to the Photometric Detection of Planets.- Searching for Planets by Differential Astrometry with Large Telescopes.- On the Search for O2 in Extrasolar Planets.- How to Evidence Life on a Distant Planet.- The Photometric Method of Extrasolar Planet Detection Revisited.- Todcor: A Two-Dimensional Correlation Technique to Analyze Stellar Spectra in Search of Faint Companions.- Development of Absolute Accelerometry.- Extrasolar Planet Detection.- Indirect Planet Detection with Ground-Based Long-Baseline Interferometry.- Direct Imaging of Planetary Systems with a Ground-Based Radio Telescope Array.- Infrared and Sub-Millimeter Searches for Extra-Solar Planetary Systems from Antarctica.- Sirtf: Capabilities for the Study of Planetary Systems.- Planetary System Evolution and the Vega Stars: The Potential for Esa’s Infrared Space Observatory.- The Edison Infrared Space Observatory and the Study of Extra-Solar Planetary Material.- The Astrometric Imaging Telescope: Detection of Planetary Systems with Imaging and Astrometry.- The Circumstellar Imager: Direct Detection of Extra-Solar Planetary Systems.- Modelling of a Space-Based Ronchi Ruling Experiment for High-Precision Astrometry.- Author Index.- List of Participants.