I grandi temi dell'Astronomia e Astrofisica nazionale

The XVI Annual Meeting of the Italian Astronomical Society took place in Padova from April 10 to 13, 2002. It was devoted to an examination of the main projects carried out in the framework of the National funding by the Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR), in the period from 1999 to 2001. These projects were proposed by large consortia of Italian researchers, often with important international collaborations, and the selection procedure involved a lengthy and severe scrutiny by a number of referees. Therefore the Scientific Committee of the Meeting felt that a fairly complete overview of the Italian Astronomy and of its role in the international scenario could be achieved. In retrospect, this goal has been amply reached, as shown by the present book, which contains a good fraction of what was actually presented. A second aim was to give visibility to the younger researchers, granting them some time for oral presentation in front of the community. This novel structure of the presentation, namely a short introduction by the Principal investigator, followed by several sections assigned to PhD students or young collaborators, was both very lively and entertaining. For sure, the older professionals had the rare occasion to listen to a number of enthusiast young astronomers-to-be, quite often of excellent quality, and all motivated to research. The oral presentations were accompanied by a high number of poster papers containing details of the larger programs, or suggestions for future projects.