The 16th volume in the annual series on recent developments and scientific progress in astronomy and astrophysics contains thirteen invited reviews presented during the International Scientific Conference of the Society on «The Cosmic Circuit of Matter», held in Berlin, Germany. Readers also learn about the lecture on the behaviour of stars by infrared interferometry given by Charles H. Townes, Berkeley, USA who was awarded the Karl Schwarzschild medal 2002. Further contributions on the topic provide, among other, the latest results on the Solar atmosphere, formation of stars, substellar objects, galaxies and clusters of galaxies.