Interstellar masers: Then and now

Abstract

The large attendance at this conference, given its specialized theme, attests to the resurgence of interest in masers. ^Some of the reasons will be pinpointed herein. ^We begin with a brief history of the field and then highlight major topics of current research - masers as tracers of star-formation, outflows in star formation, magnetic fields, recently discovered maser transitions, and extragalactic masers. ^Finally, we touch on the emerging field of thermal emission from gas in masers.