This book presents a collection of focused review papers on the advances in topics in modern astronomy, astrophysics,  cosmology and planetary science. The chapters are written by expert members of an EU-funded ERASMUS+ program of strategic partnership between several European institutes.

The 13 reviews comprise the topics: 

1. Space debris, optical measurements
2. Meteors, light from comets and asteroids
3. Extrasolar enigmas: from disintegrating exoplanets to exo-asteroids
4. Physical conditions and chemical abundances in photoionized nebulae from optical spectra
5. Observational Constraints on the Common Envelope Phase
6. A modern guide to quantitative spectroscopy of massive OB stars
7. Explosion mechanisms of core-collapse supernovae and their observational signatures
8. Low-mass and substellar eclipsing binaries in stellar clusters
9. Globular cluster systems and Galaxy Formation
10. Hot atmospheres of galaxies, groups, and clusters of galaxies
11. The establishment of the Standard Cosmological Model through observations
12. Exploiting solar visible-range observations by inversion techniques: from flows in the solar subsurface to a flaring atmosphere
13. Starburst galaxies 

The book is intended for the general astronomical community as well as for advanced students who could use it as a guideline, inspiration and overview for their future careers in astronomy.