Address at Closing Ceremony

24 August 2006

Inaugural address from the new IAU President, Catherine Cesarsky, at the IAU General Assembly 2006 in Prague. "We started this conference, in magnificent Prague, with a lovely rendition of 'What poor astronomers are they', from John Dowland. I would like to close it with my motto: 'what lucky astronomers we are': we lead purposeful and interesting lives."(...)  Full text

Draft definition of "planet" and "plutons"

16 August 2006

The world's astronomers, under the auspices of the IAU, have concluded two years of work defining the difference between "planets" and the smaller "solar system bodies" such as comets and asteroids. If the definition is approved by the astronomers gathered 14-25 August 2006 at the IAU GA, our Solar System will include 12 planets, with more to come. Full text

Newsletter n° 5

13 July 2006

The IAU Newsletters are electronically mailed at irregular intervals to all members. They aim to keep Individual Members informed on matters of common interest and concern.

You will find the last edited Newsletter n° 5 here.

The Peter Gruber Fellowships 2006

12 July 2006

The Peter Gruber Fellowships 2006 is awarded to Inma Martinez-Valpuesta (UK) and Jum Chand (India).

Information Bulletin 98 now on-line

30 June 2006

The Information Bulletin n° 98 June 2006 is available here

29th ISYAs

26 June 2006

The 29th International School for Young Astronomers will be held in Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur and Langkawi) from 6 to 24 March 2007.

You will find more information here.

Two new Pluto moons named by the IAU

26 June 2006

A tour in your new Website

3 February 2006

We are pleased to welcome our members to the new IAU website and invite them to take a tour of this new tool.  Information contained has been ordered in a comprehensive way, in order to allow you to discover the wide range of activities of our Union.

This new website will allow smooth communication with National Members, Division and Commission Presidents, and Individual Members, with the introduction of appropriate restricted areas accessible with logins composed of a username and a password which have been e-mailed.  However, it might be that the e-mail address which has been used is not valid, or that we have no e-mail address at all.  In case you did not receive your login, please contact the IAU by clicking the tab “Contact us” of the horizontal menu and ask for your login.

IAU Individual Members who visit the website are invited to immediately log in:  not only will they find general information displayed in the “restricted Area” clicking the tab on the vertical menu, in particular a complete list of “Important dates and deadlines”, but they also will be offered the possibility to check and, eventually, to amend their personal data on-line.

We shall be grateful receiving any comments or remarks which may help improving the website.

The website is optimized for Microsoft Internet Explorer, but it shall also work properly for the latest versions of most commonly used browsers (latest browser versions are especially needed to use the dynamic forms).

Oddbjørn Engvold, General Secretary.

Future IAU Scientific Meetings

26 January 2006

All the future scientific meetings of the IAU are available here.

Redefinition of Coordinated Universal Time

26 January 2006

The International Telecommunications Union Radiocommunication Bureau has requested the assistance of IAU Members "to document their experiences, both positive and negative" in dealing with the insertion of the leap second on December 31, 2005.

Please send any contribution to Dennis McCarthy dmc@maia.usno.navy.mil, President of Division I Working Group on Redefinition of Universal Time Coordinated (UTC). The Working Group will prepare a draft response for consideration by the IAU.

Dennis McCarthy
President of IAU Working Group on Redefinition of Universal Time Coordinated (UTC)