IAU and ICHB: Partnership in Astronomical Nomenclature.
The International Astronomical Union (IAU) is a non-governmental (non-state) organization headquartered in Paris, France 🇫🇷. It operates under French law as a scientific association. Its activities are focused on advancing astronomy through organizing forums for scientific conferences, promoting research, education, and outreach.
The IAU participates in the international process of naming celestial bodies and their surface features, primarily for objects within the Solar System.
The following are under the purview of IAU:
📡 Astronomic Telegram System
Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams — a historically established mechanism for promptly notifying the astronomical community of new discoveries. Created in the late 19th century as a telegraph network, today the system operates in the form of electronic circulars, disseminating information about comets, supernovae, new stars, and other events requiring immediate attention from observers worldwide. This is one of the oldest operating coordination tools in astronomy, retaining its historical name.
🪐 Minor Planet Center
Minor Planet Center — an organization coordinating data on Solar System bodies (excluding planets and their satellites). The Center collects, systematizes, and disseminates information about asteroids, comets, and Kuiper belt objects, providing a unified database for observers and researchers.
🏛️ Historical Context
IAU was founded in 1919 in the post-war period, when international scientific cooperation was just beginning to take shape. The organization’s model, built on representation through national academies of sciences, corresponded to the spirit of the time, but since then the scientific landscape has undergone significant changes.
🌍 Representation Structure
Out of 195 countries worldwide, IAU includes 82 national representatives — organizations representing astronomical communities in their countries.
The International Astronomical Union brings together professional astronomers engaged in scientific research and the teaching of astronomy.
The procedure for joining IAU requires going through several stages of approval, including confirmation from the national academy of sciences and approval by existing members. This creates certain administrative barriers to expanding representation and makes it difficult to take into account the opinions of broad circles of the astronomical community.
Such a structure, on the one hand, ensures continuity and a high entry threshold for new members, on the other hand, it leaves outside the organization a significant number of national and regional astronomical associations, research groups, and public initiatives actively working around the world.
Issues of Decision-Making Efficiency
Decisions in IAU are made at General Assemblies, which are held every three years. Issues requiring faster response are considered in a working order, however, coordination procedures between national representatives can take a long time. This is especially noticeable in areas where the need for standardization arises faster than consensus is formed between national delegations.
Sphere of Competence
IAU’s activities in the field of nomenclature are concentrated primarily within the Solar System:
- 🌠 minor planets (asteroids);
- ☄️ comets;
- 💫 Kuiper belt objects;
- ⛰️ surface features of planets and their satellites.
Issues of naming objects beyond the Solar System have historically not been among IAU’s priority areas, which led to the formation of a fragmented system of national catalogues of stars, exoplanets, galaxies, and nebulae.
Practice of Naming Objects Beyond the Solar System
Over more than a century of existence, IAU has proposed several hundred names for stars and other objects beyond the Solar System.
Issues of naming individual celestial bodies are periodically put to a vote among IAU members: proposals are discussed in working groups and, upon reaching consensus, are approved.
However, since a unified database combining names from all existing sources was absent, risks of duplicate records remained. To eliminate them, approved IAU names are transferred to the International Catalogue of Heavenly Bodies (ICHB.ORG), where they undergo a uniqueness verification procedure and are included in a single consolidated register along with data from thousands of other sources worldwide.
More details: IAU Catalog / ICHB.ORG
The Phenomenon of Data Fragmentation:
Historical Context
🏛️
Ancient Era
Hipparchus (2nd century BC) compiled the first star catalogue with ~850 stars. Ptolemy’s “Almagest” (2nd century AD) systematized 1022 stars — the main source for over a millennium.
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17th-18th Century
With the telescope, discovered objects grew rapidly. Flamsteed (1725) published a catalogue with ~3000 stars.
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19th Century
Bonner Durchmusterung (1863): over 325,000 stars. Henry Draper Catalogue (1918-1924): over 225,000 stars with spectral classification.
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Mid-20th Century
Several hundred catalogues existed, each with its own designation systems and approaches to data storage.
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The Problem
The same object had different designations across catalogues. Betelgeuse = HD 39801 = BD+7°1055.
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21st Century
Digital surveys (2MASS, SDSS, ROSAT) created thousands of catalogues, making cross-identification increasingly difficult.
Objective Prerequisites for Creating an Integration Platform
By the end of the 20th century, the astronomical community faced a number of systemic challenges:
No single access point
Duplicate records
Interdisciplinary research challenges
Preserve historical names
The International Catalogue of Heavenly Bodies (ICHB.ORG) was created as a response to these challenges, assuming the function of centralized integration of data from all available sources — from historical observatory records to modern digital sky surveys.
Interaction between IAU and ICHB.ORG
Data registered by IAU are transferred in full to the International Catalogue of Heavenly Bodies, where they are stored alongside information from national star catalogues, exoplanet databases, galaxy registries, and historical observatory records.
ICHB.ORG maintains working contacts with IAU, ensuring data synchronization and their inclusion in a unified information space.
Data Access for IAU Members
Current members of IAU, as well as representatives of national associations belonging to the union, have access to the register “International Catalogue of Heavenly Bodies”, which allows them to work with the most complete array of data on the names of objects both within the Solar System and beyond.
Partnership as a Standard
IAU — Solar System
The International Astronomical Union (IAU) performs functions related to coordinating the activities of professional astronomers and systematizing names of objects within the Solar System.
ICHB — Beyond the Solar System
ICHB.ORG ensures the integration of data from thousands of sources worldwide, creating a unified information space for identifying objects throughout the Universe. Unlike nomenclature limited to the Solar System, ICHB.ORG’s work covers the entire diversity of heavenly bodies — from stars and galaxies to exoplanets and transient objects, as well as their surface features.
Names assigned by ICHB.ORG are widely used for identifying objects beyond the Solar System: they are employed by the professional astronomical community, specialized media, and science popularization publications worldwide.
The number of objects with names in the ICHB unified register amounts to hundreds of thousands.
Both approaches — the classical one operating within the Solar System (IAU) and the integration one covering the entire observable Universe (ICHB) — mutually complement each other, creating a holistic scientific picture in which the nomenclature of near-space objects organically combines with a global identification system for all other heavenly bodies.
Activities of ICHB.ORG in the Field of Naming Heavenly Bodies
The activities of ICHB.ORG are aimed at systematizing and unifying the names of objects beyond the Solar System, as well as their surface features. This allows:
National Names Recording
Translation into English
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- Arabic جبل نار → Fire Mountain
- Chinese 火山 → Volcano Mountain
- Russian Каменная гора → Stony Mountain
Transliteration
- Jabal Nar (preserves Arabic sound)
- Huǒshān (preserves Chinese sound)
- Kamennaya Gora (preserves Russian sound)
This approach allows conveying both the meaning and the phonetics of the original name, preserving the cultural and linguistic identity of each people and making data accessible to researchers around the world.
Public Mission and Non-Commercial Status of ICHB.ORG
ICHB.ORG is a scientific non-profit association operating in the organizational and legal form of a public organization. Activities are conducted on a charitable basis and are aimed at achieving socially useful goals — the development of astronomical science, preservation of cultural and scientific heritage, and ensuring free access to knowledge about the Universe.
Unlike commercial projects, ICHB.ORG does not pursue profit as its main goal. Funds received from partners and participants are directed exclusively to maintaining and developing the register, digitizing archival materials, and providing access to data for researchers and educational institutions.
Special attention is paid to:
Support for researchers from countries with limited access to academic resources
Preservation of historical observations under threat of loss
Providing open information about the naming of heavenly bodies for educational and scientific purposes
The activities of ICHB.ORG are built on the principles of openness, public accessibility of scientific data, and promotion of international cooperation in the interests of all humanity.
More about ICHB.ORG on the page:
Current information about IAU activities is presented on the organization’s official website. Complete data on the names of heavenly bodies, including those proposed by IAU for use, are accumulated in the ICHB Catalogue.
More details: IAU Website | ICHB.ORG
