Talk:International Astronomical Union

Protection?
Considering the constant vandalism, perhaps this page should be protected? --Aelffin 17:13, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

NO! We need to be able to see how the sum of all human knowledge deals with the Pluto issue.
 * Only if that "knowledge" is suitable as encyclopedia content. ;-) -- Northgrove 08:07, 25 August 2006 (UTC)


 * If repeatedly redirecting this page to Feces is the way the sum of all human knowledge deals with the Pluto issue, then screw the sum of all human knowledge. --Aelffin 18:08, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

How can you reclassify a planet after so many people in the world learned all the planets since grade school. Just because someone wakes up one morning and decides they are bored witht the criteria for stars and planets doesn't mean they can just change it and it will be accepted. If you are that bored with your job, then it is time to find another job.
 * Please see 2006 redefinition of planet. Tzepish 22:59, 26 August 2006 (UTC)


 * It's got nothing to do with boredom. It has to do with the fact that scientists need to have terms that reflect natural categories. "Planets" is a term for the natural category of big objects that control their local area. Pluto is not such a body. See orbital resonance for details. It's unfortunate that they let the improper term stick around for so long. --Aelffin
 * Personally, I side with astronomer Michael Brown. The term planet is like the term continent; it doesn't need a scientific definition. They are both man-made categories for natural phenomena. Calling Pluto a planet was not improper untill five days ago. I feel that they should have left the definition open, and confirmed Pluto and 2003 UB313 as planets.Amphion 01:05, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Calling Pluto a planet was always awkward if not improper. When I was in middle school there were already questions about its status as a planet. I remember articles in Discover magazine that speculated maybe Pluto was an escaped satellite of Neptune or a captured Oort object. It was clear from the start that it was very different from everything else we called a "planet". With the discovery of many similar objects from 1992 on, it has become crystal clear to the astronomical community that calling Pluto a planet was an inadvertently arbitrary choice. Though there was never an official definition, there were plenty of ad hoc definitions floating around. The IAU's final decision reflects most of these scientific uses of the term. Maybe it would have been better to leave it undefined. But after the IAU wrote original draft proposal, it was obvious that astronomers had to put their foot down. I'm glad they did. People are learning a valuable lesson about change. --Aelffin 13:51, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
 * "Change is inevitable, except from vending machines" . Perhaps you're right, but something tells me that this is not going to end the debate. And what's the "valuable lesson" ?Amphion 18:18, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
 * In reply to Aelffin citing a Discover Magazine article, I seem to recall an article in Discover Magazine about how the universe is a four dimensional hologram of a five dimensional object projected from a distance of infinity. But then, Discover is not exactly a peer reviewed publication. Its pages have the same worth to the scientific community as anything printed on a roll of novelty toilet paper.24.254.163.150 (talk) 16:38, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I personally think that Amphion is right. This is definately not going to end the debate about Pluto.  I personally also think that it's not too good of an idea to have one group deciding the definitions of space and all that's in it.  One day, they may just, out of the blue, decide to make Earth a "dwarf planet" !  I think anyone who is can vote and properly understands the concept should vote on it, then have the IAU voice their opinions.  That way, they can't just get a majority vote in the Union on whether to keep the earth a planet or not.  Do you get what I'm saying? Guest,Seacrane. 01:45, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

It is important to note that, strictly speaking, the IAU has no authority over anything. They are a nongovernmental organization. There is no law in any country that forces you,me, or any scientist to accept anything that the union says. Decisions made by this union have absolutely no legal force whatsoever. No one gave them the authority to decide what a planet is, they simply proclaim that they have such a power, and people seem to believe them. When someone says that "Pluto is no longer a planet," what they are really saying is that the IAU no longer considers it a planet. It is important to make this distinction.--Nacnud298 03:47, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't know why people cling to this Pluto planethood so hard - I mean, people did their research, it's not just some statement that the world is asked to accept. ~ GoldenGoose100 (talk) 07:12, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Some people (me included) have a different idea of what a planet is. To me, a planet is not necessarily something that has cleared its orbit (this distinction has its own category to me, "orbit-clearing planet") - it is something that a) orbits a star directly, b) is not a star, brown dwarf, white/black dwarf, neutron star, or black hole, and c) is not a disk/ring/belt around the star. (Disk components would be asteroids/comets/dwarf planets, and therefore, planets in their own right.) A planet would have a central mass somewhere, gathered together. Thus, my definition of "planet" would include comets and even artificial solar satellites (which would inhabit their own categories of planet). This would be a simple classification and avoid linguistic issues. &mdash;  Rickyrab. Yada yada yada 19:12, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
 * As for categorization of planets, I would suggest the following classes: asteroids (irregular bodies made of rock and/or metal), comets (irregular bodies made largely of ice and/or other potentially outgassing substances), dwarf planets (gravitationally rounded bodies that have not cleared their orbits), terrestial planets (planets that have cleared their orbits and have rocky/partially rocky surfaces), water planets (planets that have cleared their orbits and are entirely covered by water), icy giants (giant planets with a lot of ice in them), and gas giants (giant planets that have no truly coherent surface), and artificial solar satellites (including space colonies, probes, etc., so long as they orbit a star). &mdash;  Rickyrab. Yada yada yada 19:12, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Considering that I came here and found the word "ass" substituted a few times in "astronomical" and "as" perhaps this page needs some minimal protection from potty-mouth brats.--[[User: spacewriter] 18 September, 2008

Suggestion
The number of members should be given a date, e.g. "as of 2005" - it's going to change over time, isn't it, and giving an (approximate seems reasonable enough: Don't need to bog it with details) date will suffice. Adam Cuerden talk 13:18, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Given the attention being paid to the IAU in light of the planetary definition issue, would the creation of a "Planet Definition Committee" subheading be warranted? 128.125.53.44 09:45, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I came to this page expecting to see more information about the work that the IAU publishes, especially with respect to the establishment of conventional celestial reference systems and reference frames, such as the Fifth Fundamental Catalogue (FK5) published in 1998, or the International Celestial Reference System (ICRS) which officially replaced the FK5 as of January 1, 1998. A great source for more information on this topic can be found in section 2.1, "Reference Coordinate Systems" of the following book: Seeber, G. (2003). Satellite Geodesy (2nd ed.). Berlin, Germany: Walter de Gruyter. Much of the information in the above source can be viewed on-line by search Google Books for "satellite geodesy reference coordinate systems". ChrisTracy (talk) 03:00, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Observatory catalog
Some of the major observatory articles here on the wiki have an IAU code. Does anyone know how to find this list? I'd like to add them to some of the article's I've wirten, but if there is such a list, I can't find it on the IAU web site, nor Google. Maury 12:41, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
 * http://www.minorplanetcenter.net/iau/lists/ObsCodesF.html

Bold
Don't know why the introductory paragraph is in bold font - but there is no discussion of it on this talk page, and it's completely unnecessary and against a number of wikipedia basic standards. I'll take care of that now. ~ GoldenGoose100 (talk) 07:17, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Nevermind. Looks like someone forgot to put the ''' on the opposite side of the International Astronomical Union phrase at the top. ~ GoldenGoose100 (talk) 07:22, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Publications
The IAU has several sponsored periodicals, particularly:
 * Two volumes of IAU Transactions (published for each General Assembly, Trans. A before and Trans. B afterwards)
 * IAU Symposia
 * IAU Colloquia and
 * Highlights of Astronomy. The publisher, Cambridge University Press, follows Kluwer Academic Publishers (pre-1999) and the Astronomical Society of the Pacific ((1999-2004) as the IAU publisher.

Discussion in depth of these would be in scope for WP:WikiProject Academic Journals, but mention in passing would be appropriate in this article. User:LeadSongDog come howl  19:33, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Member map caption
Pluto brought me here. I'm not looking to haggle over planet classification, but this is the backstory. Reading that article made me wonder just who these IAU professionals were. I noted two things about the map. ‘The IAU includes member organizations from 73 countries (so-called national members)’ caption being placed in parenthesis and italicized as such, would in US English grammar, be used to call special attention, if not outright sarcasm by combining the hyphenated ‘so-called’ thus amplifying the meaning of national members. I don't think this was the intent. I suggest a rewording to ‘The IAU includes member organizations from 73 countries (designated as National Members)’. Throughout their web page, National Members is capitalized. I'm interested in what factors go into why a country would have no representative members. I don't want to broach Original research but will look for discussion elsewhere to learn more about WP:OR.

Any thoughts? -- S l i m J i m  Talk 12:44, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I reworded the caption as suggested above. It is definitely more appropriate this way. Thx,  R fassbind  -talk   10:26, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

WGPSN Redirect proposed for deletion
WGPSN and Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature currently redirect to the lead of International Astronomical Union. The Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature merits its own section in the article, since this group formally approves names for planetary surface features and there are plenty of articles such as in Category:Geography_of_Pluto, Category:Geology of Mercury and Category:Impact craters on Mars that will refer to (e.g. as IAU–WGPSN). Once the section exists, the mentioned redirects will then change to R to section. Here's some additional information: WGPSN does press releases:, , and has its own website http://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/. R fassbind -talk   10:56, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

IAU and Pluto
I have removed the whole segment in this IAU page on Pluto and the IAU decision to downgrade it to a dwarf planet. The text here is very likely politically motivated, especially in regards those who oppose and still oppose the change. This occurred nine years ago, and the conference referred to has had two since this time. The issue should appear on the Pluto page or Dwarf planets articles not here.

The article is supposed about the IAU, not one of their possible contentious decisions. The removed text is necessary because it places the IAU in a bad light (deliberately?) when articles should have a WP:NOPV and WP:IMPARTIAL. The removed text clearly finds that: "The tone of Wikipedia articles should be impartial, neither endorsing nor rejecting a particular point of view." This is far from being neutral here. Arianewiki1 (talk) 13:06, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Comission C1 and Comission 46
Commission 46 no longer exists and has been replaced by Commission C1 as was stated in the version that was reverted by Arianewiki1 at 23:35, 4 November 2015‎. For historical reasons and because this an Encyclopedia the former text explaining the work of Commission 46 was kept. I request Arianewiki1 to undo his reversion. User:Alexandrejcosta — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.240.45.18 (talk) 07:00, 5 November 2015 (UTC)


 * No, I will not reverse it. The text that replaced the earlier version is taken from IAU sources directly then slightly paraphrased. If you have evidence that Commission 46 is now Commission C1, then change only "Commission 46" with direct reference to the fact + reference. Also Unlisted User:85.246.184.220 edits this page back to almost the original version that I deleted, that was because "Removed and summarised this uncited text, which appear paraphrased from several sources. Most of this is promotion, which is against Wikipedia guidelines. Please discuss further changes on talk page.)"
 * Clear you you have some direct stake in this material, as seen in the edits here. and here.
 * It clearly says "Alexandre de Costa (Portugal)" here, which is you - evidence this is promotional material and why it was properly deleted in the first place. Wikipedia has specific rules on this. I.e. WP:ADMASK and WP:ADMASQ
 * Worst, you edit is behind 85.240.45.18 by only 3 minutes in time, suspiciously attributable to you as an alternative alias.
 * Either stick to a WP:NPOV, use relevant citations, else material will always be reverted.
 * Notably too, Network for Astronomy School Education - NASE has its own Wikipedia page, which you seem the only one to be editing BTW. Most of these point should be address on that page, not within the IAU page, which is supposed to be more "global" in presentation.


 * A further point is that the IAU has many Commissions, which have specialist astronomers in them. Why are this not given, and why is only this Commission mentioned in the IAU article? Arianewiki1 (talk) 10:34, 5 November 2015 (UTC)Arianewiki1 (talk) 10:34, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Dear Arianewiki1 first of all I would like to clarify that I was, in fact, Unlisted User:85.246.184.220  because until yesterday I didn't know that you could edit things without logging in and when I started editing I didn't notice that I hadn't logged in. I only discovered this after the first editions and then I corrected it.

I consider Wikipedia to be an encyclopedia and therefore it should be accurate. Therefore I am very careful about writing things and I only write about things that I am sure about. IAU has indeed several Commissions but I don't know enough about the other to be accurate.

From an Historical point what is on the wiki about Commission 46 is more or less accurate though it talks about somethings that are not historically relevant and doesn't talk about others that are. But Commission 46 has been replaced by Commission C1 that has three working groups and that is what I updated. You can see the present Comissions of IAU here []. Why was Commission 46 the only Commission on the wiki I don't know. I didn't put it there in the first place. I didn't erase the Commission 46 text because I think that in fifty or sixty years it will be important to understand that Commission 46 preceded Commission C1, because I always look at Wikipedia as an encyclopedia (trying to be like Alexandria's Library). I know about this because I am part of Commission C1 and that is why I wrote about this, that's why I can be accurate. I don't know that much about the other Commissions. I think people that are part of the the other Commission's should add them. There where links that I put in the wiki to the Commission's webpage [] and its Working Groups pages[][][] and they were merely factual those pages don't talk about me and I don't think that IAU needs promotion. IAU is the astronomical reference to any astronomer and Commission C1 is the reference in Astronomy Education. If you are an active astronomer (working at NASA, ESA, ESO, or any other Astronomy position) you can apply to be accepted as a member or an associate of IAU.User:Alexandre Costa (talk) 05:41, 6 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your reply, and my apologies for no getting back to you sooner. I've had other duties to do in the intervening time.
 * Issue with not logging in is familiar error by new users, so I do accept totally what you say.
 * The recent changing of Commissions is a complex one. Some, like Commission 4 too, were reassigned, and much of the reorganisation of them continues on ever now. It's is agreed that the name need to be changed in this article.
 * However, the information you've given weights too much on an article on the IAU, an it need to be much shorter. (Another option is to get a new page.) Whilst education and spreading the word is very important, it is really only a small part of the whole IAU's actual function. Being associated with this educational function is usually perceived as detrimental to articles, as often, even with the best intentions, the importance of what is said overshadows the intention of the general article. When I recently edited the article, I found that the text is this section closely paraphrased IAU promotional material almost to the case of violating its copyright. This text needs to be objective rather than promote an organisation or individual. [WP:BFAQ#RULES ] Note: Sometimes, such edits can be WP:COIN investigated, but as a seemingly reasonable person, we probably can easily avoid that path. :}
 * I am happy to look into the subject in more detail, especially as I have to get my own head around the big changes of the Commission structures of the IAU! I'd think if this is balanced with the other Commissions and that the text introduced by you is much shorter and more generic to the IAU, the article will benefit from this greatly and would help the general reader on the nature of the IAU.
 * In the meantime, removing the Commission 46 and changing it into Division C Commission C1 is no problem at all. (Though the explanation of the Divisions and Commissions, etc, will need to be also explained earlier in the document text. Else there is no context to what you edit wishes to do.)
 * Thanks and regards. Arianewiki1 (talk) 20:04, 6 November 2015 (UTC)


 * I should have mentioned, all this can be found on the IAU link. This is under sections IX. and X. The changes, and the actual bodies. Reducing this to some digestible form is a tad difficult. (I know more than a dozen people on these various Commissions quite well, actually!) Arianewiki1 (talk) 20:25, 6 November 2015 (UTC)



List of the named stars?
The new releases list of the named stars was released today: []

Imho it would be woth to copy them all in an extra list for completeness. -- 89.245.43.143 (talk) 10:38, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
 * See List of proper names of stars. Cuddlyopedia (talk) 08:35, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Source(s) Of The IAU's Authority?
The opening paragraph of this article states that, "[The IAU] acts as the internationally recognized authority for assigning designations and names to celestial bodies". I'd like to see a link added, linking to the treaty, or list of treaties, granting the IAU this authority. Such a listing would be especially relevant in the "definition of planet" variant of this article (which should link back to this one), since most people are neither astronomers, nor members themselves of the International Astronomical Union; thus, absent a treaty, adopted by the Senate and made thereby a part of federal law, it is expected that such nonmembers -- that's most of us -- would not be bound by the IAU's demotion ruling on Pluto. The Grand Rascal (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 16:43, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Controversial decision?
I was reading this article and was surprised to read about the "Extraordinary IAU General Assembly" being decided by a "controversial decision of the then President of the IAU", without any link to support this affirmation. I have no idea if this is correct or not but appeared on one edit 12 years ago and googling it doesn't give much data. The french page which is a bit more developed doesn't say a word about it. If there is no support for this affirmation shouldn't a more neutral approach be used? Xbertou (talk) 22:14, 3 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Doing a little digging, this history paper] discussed on pages 50-51 that the decision was in fact contentious. I've added the ref to the article. -- 00:12, 4 August 2020 (UTC)


 * What a fantastic reading. Thanks! Not sure what the rules are here but I am more than satisfied with the answer and if it was up to me I'd close the topic and remove it from the Talk page. Xbertou (talk) 17:46, 10 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Thanks for raising the issue--I enjoyed the paper, too! We have consensus that there is support for calling it a controversial decision, so that is all that needs doing. It's best to leave this topic in place for other editors wanting to understand the history of the article. -- 00:48, 11 August 2020 (UTC)