The Evolution of Galaxies

Galaxies have a history. This has become clear from recent sky surveys which have shown that distant galaxies, formed early in the life of the Universe, differ from the nearby ones. New observational windows at ultraviolet, infrared and millimetric wavelengths (provided by ROSAT, IRAM, IUE, IRAS, ISO) have revealed that galaxies contain a wealth of components: very hot gas, atomic hydrogen, molecules, dust, dark matter. A significant advance is expected from the results of new instruments (VLT, FIRST, XMM) which will allow one to explore the most distant Universe. Three Euroconferences were planned to punctuate this new epoch in galactic research, bringing together specialists in various fields of Astronomy. This book contains the proceedings of the third conference and presents the actual state-of-the-art of modelling galaxy evolution.