International Year for Astro-nomy 2009

policy. The Commission’s report has led to a major reorganization of the French space agency. At ESA, he was also entrusted with the task of defining the European strategy for Earth Sciences and Observation, now called the ‘Living Planet’ programme. In collaboration with the European Commission, Professor R-M. Bonnet helped set the cornerstone for a European Space Policy, by coordinating the results of consulting the science community in the formulation of the EU/ESA Green Paper on Space. As President of COSPAR, he is pursuing the broadest vision of international cooperation in space research. He is particularly supportive of developing countries and smaller nations. R-M. Bonnet is the author of more than 150 articles and scientific publications and books. The Hubert Curien Award was presented to Proessor Bonnet by Eurisy’s President, Dr C. Hicks, on 2 October during the 2008 International Astronautical Congress in Glasgow, on the occasion of the Science and Exploration plenary session.

[From EURISY Newsletter, July 2008]

In Brief International Year for Astronomy 2009 (IYA2009) [From H. Haubold, Office for Outer Space Affairs]

T

he General Assembly of the United Nations, at its 62nd session, declared 2009 as the International Year of Astronomy and emphasized “… that the Year could play a crucial role, inter alia, in raising public awareness of the importance of astronomy and basic sciences for sustainable development, promoting access to the universal knowledge of

fundamental science through the excitement generated by the subject of astronomy …”. The IYA2009 Brochure, which includes information about the inception, planning, preparation, implementation, and evaluation of IYA2009 can be found at the website: www.astronomy2009.org/files/ Brochure3/ IYA2009_Brochure_3_web.pdf. This Brochure was made available to the 51st session of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UNCOPUOS) held in Vienna, Austria, from 11 to 20 June 2008. The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), as the Secretariat of UNCOPUOS, is acting as one of the organizational nodes and associates for IYA2009. The UN document, www.unoosa. org/pdf/reports/ac105/AC105_902E.pdf, contains the Report on the Third UN/ESA/NASA Workshop on the International Heliophysical Year 2007 and Basic Space Science, held at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Tokyo, Japan, 18-22 June 2007. This Workshop was utilized by a group of renowned space scientists and astronomers to highlight the cooperation of Japan with UNOOSA over the past twenty years. Japan’s support in donating astronomical telescopes and planetaria as well as providing instrumentation for setting up the world-wide network of magnetometers developed by Kyushu University, Japan (MAGDAS – MAGnetic Data Aquistion System), particularly in developing nations, is described in detail in the report. The Workshops, organized annually since 1991, and Japan’s support in the field of astronomy for developing nations – that has been facilitated through the Workshops, is considered a substantive contribution to IYA2009 and the implementation of its objectives. UNOOSA would like to take this opportunity to thank the Japanese Government and all the cooperating organizations and institutions in Japan for the unstinting support provided in the past

119

for the above unique initiative in fostering international cooperation at the widest possible level in the field of space science and astronomy, particularly for the benefit of developing nations.

19-23 January 2009 Paris, France The Role of Astronomy in Society and Culture (IAU Symposium 260) www.iau.org Contact: [email protected]

IHY and the UN [From Hans Haubold, UN Vienna]

9-13 February 2009 Melbourne, Australia Extremes: Climate and Water in the Southern Hemisphere http://www.bom.gov.au/events/9icshmo/

T

he UN started preparations of its basic space science activities in the International Heliophysical Year (IHY 2007) with the workshop in the United Arab Emirates and concluded its IHY 2007 activities with a workshop in South Korea. There is a set of excellent web pages established for each of the workshops between 2005 and 2009, and all are fully accessible at www.unoosa.org/oosa/en/ SAP/bss/ihy2007/index.html. These websites will be used to report on progress in the implementation of the so-called Coordinated Investigation Programmes (CIPs) and the deployment of ground-based instrument arrays world-wide. The web addresses are:

The results of basic space science workshops, organized between 1991 to 2004 are still accessible at www.seas.columbia. Edu/~ah297/un-esa/

Meetings of Interest to COSPAR [Meetings organized or sponsored by COSPAR are shown in bold face.] 4-8 January 2009 Long Beach, California, USA American Astronomical Society (213th Mtg) www.aas.org/meetings

30 March – 2 April 2009 Darmstadt, Germany 5th Euro. Conf. on Space Debris http://www.congres.nl/09A03 19-24 April 2009 Vienna, Austria EGU General Assembly http://meetings.copernicus.org/egu2009/ 27 April – 1 May 2009 Bournemouth, UK Three Eyes on the Sun – Multi-spacecraft Studies of the Corona and Impacts on the Heliosphere: (STEREO-3/SOHO-22 Workshop) www.sstd.rl.ac.uk/Stereo-Soho/ Contact: [email protected]

UAE 2005: www.ihy.uaeu.ac.ae/ India 2006: www.iiap.res.in/ihy/ Japan 2007: solarwww.mtk.nao.ac.jp/ UNBSS_Tokyo07/ Bulgaria 2008: www.stil.bas.bg/UNBSSIHY/ Korea 2009: ihy.kasi.re.kr/meeting.php

Meetings

24-27 February 2009 Huntsville, USA Space, Propulsion & Energy Sciences Int. Forum www.ias-spes.org/SPESIF.html

27 April – 1 May 2009 Virginia Beach, VA, USA Relativity in Fundamental Astronomy (IAU Symposium 261) www.iau.org Contact: [email protected] 19-24 April 2009 Hatfield, UK Royal Astronomical Society National Astronomy Meeting http://www.ras.org.uk/ 7-11 June 2009 Pasadena, California, USA American Astronomical Society (214th Mtg) www.aas.org/meetings

120