Related papers: IAU Planet Definition: Some Confusions and Their M…
This chapter reviews the definition of exoplanets and of brown dwarfs. Emphasis is given to the separation of these two populations. A traditional view is to declare {\guillemotleft} planet {\guillemotright} objects with a mass < 13 M Jup…
We present a summary of the major contributions to the Special Session on Data Management held at the IAU General Assembly in Prague in 2006. While recent years have seen enormous improvements in access to astronomical data, and the Virtual…
Women in the Astronomy and STEM fields face systemic inequalities throughout their careers. Raising awareness, supported by detailed statistical data, represents the initial step toward closely monitoring hurdles in career progress and…
IAU Commission 35 consists of members of the International Astronomical Union whose research is concerned with the structure and evolution of stars in all parts of the H-R diagram. Their interests range from various aspects of stellar…
Astrometry as a technique has so far proved of limited utility when employed as either a follow-up tool or to independently search for planetary mass companions orbiting nearby stars. However, this is bound to change during the next decade.…
The modern usage of the words astronomy and astrology is traced back to distinctions, largely ignored in recent scholarship. Three interpretations of celestial phenomena (in a geometric, a substantialist and a prognostic versions) coexisted…
One primary reason for the formulation of the term Earth-like planet and the search for such planets in the galaxy is because life has arisen in such a world. Thus, this search seems justifiable as it is known here what one is looking for.…
The concept of an angle is one that often causes difficulties in metrology. These are partly caused by a confusing mixture of several mathematical terms, partly by real mathematical difficulties and finally by imprecise terminology. The…
The formation of planets is one of the major unsolved problems in modern astrophysics. Planets are believed to form out of the material in circumstellar disks known to exist around young stars, and which are a by-product of the star…
Although black holes are objects of central importance across many fields of physics, there is no agreed upon definition for them, a fact that does not seem to be widely recognized. Physicists in different fields conceive of and reason…
In this paper, we first summarize the results of a large-scale double-blind tests campaign carried out for the realistic estimation of the Gaia potential in detecting and measuring planetary systems. Then, we put the identified capabilities…
Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming astronomical research, yet the scientific community has largely treated this transformation as an engineering challenge rather than an epistemological one. This perspective article argues that…
Our knowledge about the universe has increased tremendously in the last three decades or so --- thanks to the progress in observations --- but our understanding has improved very little. There are several fundamental questions about our…
We point out serious shortcomings of a very recent article (Iorio in Astrophys. Space Sci. 364:126, 2019) wrongly claiming that the current precision with which we know orbits of planets in the Solar System rules out the possibility of…
The era of high-precision astrometry has dawned upon us. The potential of Gaia $\mu$as-level precision in positional measurements is about to be unleashed in the field of extrasolar planetary systems. The Gaia data hold the promise for much…
The 88 constellations as defined by the IAU segment the sky into regions, separated by an intricate set of boundaries. A binary tree decomposition of this landscape is given which tessellates the celestial sphere into rectangles. This…
The concept of sphere of influence of a planet is useful in both the context of impact monitoring of asteroids with the Earth and of the design of interplanetary trajectories for spacecrafts. After reviewing the classical results, we…
(abridged) The activities of the Commission have continued to focus on controlling unwanted light and radio emissions at observatory sites, monitoring of conditions at observatory sites, and education and outreach. Commission members have…
In the past few years, the number of confirmed planets has grown above 2000. It is clear that they represent a diversity of structures not seen in our own solar system. In addition to very detailed interior modeling, it is valuable to have…
Global climate change is one of main concern of modern society. To estimate this change usually one estimates the global mean temperature. Measuring and calculating the Earth's average temperature are multi-steps complex processes which…