On 25 January 2012, the scientific session of the Physical Sciences Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), entitled as “Challenges in astrophysics”, was held at the conference hall of the Lebedev Physical Institute, RAS. The following reports were put on the session agenda posted on the website www.gpad.ac.ru of the RAS Physical Sciences Division: (1) Stepanov A V (Central (Pulkovo) Astronomical Observatory, RAS, St. Petersburg) “Coronal seismology”; 2) Yakovlev D G (Ioffe Physical Technical Institute, St. Petersburg; St. Petersburg State Polytechnical University, St. Petersburg) “Superfluid neutron stars”. The papers written on the base of the oral reports are published below. • Coronal seismology, A V Stepanov, V V Zaitsev, V M Nakariakov Physics-Uspekhi, 2012, Volume 55, Number 9, Pages 929–935 • Superfluid neutron stars, P S Shternin, D G Yakovlev Physics-Uspekhi, 2012, Volume 55, Number 9, Pages 935–941