It is an international association of professional astronomers, at the PhD level and beyond, active in professional research and education in astronomy headquartered at Paris.
| Headquarters | Paris, France |
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Membership
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79 national members 12,664 individual members |
- It acts as the internationally recognized authority for assigning designations to celestial bodies and any surface features on them.
- The IAU is a member of the International Council for Science (ICSU).
- Objective is to promote and safeguard the science of astronomy in all its aspects through international cooperation.
- Working groups include the Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature (WGPSN), which maintains the astronomical naming conventions and planetary nomenclature for planetary bodies, and the Working Group on Star Names (WGSN), which catalogs and standardizes proper names for stars.
- The IAU is also responsible for the system of astronomical telegrams which are produced and distributed on its behalf by the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams.
- The Indian National Science Academy is a member of this group.