International astronomical Union

The international astronomical union (UAI) is a nongovernmental international association whose objective is to coordinate work of the astronomers throughout the world.

History

Founded in 1919, in order to gather the projects of solar Union, the Sky chart and the International office of the hour (BIH).

Its first president was Benjamin Baillaud. Pieter Johannes van Rhijn as for him was used at this station as 1932 with 1958. The UAI is chaired since August 28th 2006 by the French Catherine Cesarsky.

The UAI counts among its members of the scientific organizations of 60 countries like several thousands of individual members (9 040 in January 2005).

The August 24th 2006, after several years of discussions and controversies within the community of the astronomers, a vote of the 26e General meeting fixes the definition of a Planet. That involves the change of category of Pluton which becomes a dwarf Planet in company of Cérès and of Éris.

Organization

The UAI is only entitled to give their name to the celestial objects. She encourages the activity of the schools in Astronomie.

The official languages are there the English and the French. Its permanence is located at the Institut of astrophysics of Paris. The astronomical Union organizes frequent scientific meetings and holds a plenary assembly every three years, it also publishes an annual bulletin.

Commissions

The UAI is divided in 40 commissions (among which are the Bureau of the astronomical telegrams and the International office of the hour) distributed in 12 disciplines:

Nomination of the celestial objects

The commissions of the UAI propose names for the objects of the solar system, in particular for planets. Those adopt the names of the Gods of the Greek Mythologie, in a coherent way. Because of its red color, the fourth planet was called Mars in reference to the Roman god of the Guerre (which thus makes run the Sang). Another more recent example relates to the discovery of a new celestial object larger than Pluton and obliged the astronomers to redefine the concept of planet. The UAI created thus a new category of celestial object, the dwarf planets and named Eris, goddess of the discord among Greeks, because it drove out Pluton traditional account of the planets which is now a dwarf planet.

Here how the UAI names the celestial objects: they receive a provisional Désignation systemic composed of letters and figures then a final name after a certain time (which perhaps very long).

The objects discovered before the existence of the UAI are exceptions:

the first Comet S took the name of their discoverer. For example, the Halley's Comet discovered by Edmund Halley.
the Astéroïde S were named according to the imagination and the taste of the discoverer.
the satellite , as for them, are named according to the topic of their planet: the Giant Titans and of the Greek Mythology for the bodies in orbit around Saturn, the characters of William Shakespeare for Uranus discovered by an English. The experts of the UAI have been able to also draw from the names of celebrities died for more than three years, provided that they were neither of the soldiers nor of the policies, avoiding polemic very.

General meetings

A General meeting of the UAI takes place every three years.

An extraordinary general assembly of the UAI with take place in 1973 with Warsaw, Poland, in commemoration of the 500e birthday of the birth of Nicolas Copernic.

Next the General meeting envisaged are:

for the 27e General meeting in 2009 with Rio de Janeiro,

for the 28e General meeting in 2012 with Beijing, China

Random links: