All Skies Encyclopaedia
Welcome to the All Skies Wiki!
Hello world(s)!
This is a publicly visible wiki in which the Working Group Star Names (WGSN) of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) collects and collates the data needed to name stars.
Modern star names are made for use in research papers; they are supposed to be a convention for global communication which is undertaken in English. The names of the IAU-Star Name Catalogue will never replace the names of local traditions and cultural heritage.
About IAU WGSN
Astronomy is a rather old science and was practiced by all cultures on Earth. Therefore, modern astronomy & astrophysics for long time hesitated to name stars at all. For any bright (naked eye) star, there are different names in all cultures. It was only because of the nomenclature of variable stars (they are named with a number and the constellation name) and research on variables as an emerging field in the early 20th century, that the young IAU in the 1920s aimed to define the names and boundaries of constellations officially, globally binding for use in international communication in research. However, back then they did not define any star name officially. Only in the early 2000s with yet another emerging field in astronomy, i.e. the research on extrasolar planets, the necessity for global agreements on “scientific names” for stars evolved. These are the names that shall be used in research papers – but of course, all planetariums, school teachers and hobby astronomers will (hopefully) keep their local traditions in addition. We encourage everybody to keep their own cultural heritage!
As a newly established working group of the IAU (established only in 2016) we have developed two branches: The branch of research on cultural heritage and historical names for the bright stars with which we now aim to name the bright stars (facing a lot of cultural struggles, as we want to include everybody and don’t want to be intrusive), and the other branch of naming faint stars (invisible to the naked eye observer) with all sorts of names suggested by the public – which can be names of local cultures, global pop culture or anything else…
As we are a rather young working group within the IAU and still in the process of updating our terms of reference while we are faced with new suggestions, it may take a while until a specific star is named.
