CELEBRATE IAU100 IN ROMANIA MIREL BIRLANˆ 1,3, CRISTINA BLAGA4, IHARKA SZUCS-CSILLIK¨ 2, DIANA BES¸LIU-IONESCU1, ALEXANDRU POP2, DAN-ALIN NEDELCU1, OCTAVIAN BADESCU˘ 1, SORIN MARIN1 1 Astronomical Institute of Romanian Academy Str. Cut¸itul de Argint 5, 040557 Bucharest, Romania Email: [email protected] 2Astronomical Institute of Romanian Academy, Cluj-Napoca Observatory Str. Cires¸ilor 19, 400487 Cluj-Napoca, Romania 3 Institut de Mecanique´ Celeste´ et de Calculs des Eph´ em´ erides,´ CNRS UMR 8028, Observatoire de Paris, PSL Research University, 77 av Denfert-Rochereau, 75014 Paris Cedex, France 4Babes¸–Bolyai University, Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science Str. Kogalniceanu˘ 1, 600410 Cluj-Napoca, Romania Abstract. The article makes an overview of Romanian participation into the interna- tional manifestations and network activities over the World during the year 2019. This year was particularly influenced by the Centennial activities organized by the Interna- tional Astronomical Union (IAU). Key words: History of astronomy – CNRA – IAU. 1. INTRODUCTION Romanian National Committee for Astronomy (CNRA in Romanian) is a non- formal, consultative organisation, which was founded in 1930. CNRA was recog- nized as Committee supporting the astronomy in Romania; its functions relies from a statute and its activities are carried out under the Presidium of Romanian Academy. CNRA contributes and sustains research activities in astronomy, promotes the astronomy in the formal and informal education, imagines and contributes to the link between professional and non-governmental organizations (NGO) in popularization of astronomy. At the international level, CNRA is the representative organisation, which en- sure the relation with organisation such as International Astronomical Union (IAU) and European Astronomical Society (EAS). Its President and the Executive Bureau are de facto representing the National Committee for Astronomy (NCA) for Roma- nia. Romania benefits from all legal rights as a full member of IAU. In 2019 IAU celebrates its Centennial(Figure 1). Indeed, 100 years ago, as- tronomers and astrophysicists from many countries, signed the birth of IAU, in the Palais des Academies´ in Brussels, Belgium. In April 2019, the open ceremony of Romanian Astron. J. , Vol. 29, No. 3, p. 243–250, Bucharest, 2019 244 Mirel BIRLANˆ et al. 2 Fig. 1 – IAU100 logo in Romanian. IAU100 took place in the same historical conference room of the Palace. During this ceremony, several international activities are presented and started. The objective of IAU100 was to promote astronomy and raise the awareness of as many people as possible all over the meridians. 2. CONFERENCES AND LECTURES LABELLED IAU100 IN ROMANIA One of the most representative international conference labeled IAU100 was the Academic Days of Cluj-Napoca (ZAC2019) entitled Recent developments in as- tronomy, astrophysics, space, and planetary sciences. Organized yearly since 2014, in 2019 the attendees to this conference reached more than 50 researchers in astron- omy and related fields from Romania, Hungary, France, United Kingdom, United States, and Moldavia. Between 27 and 29 of May 2019, twenty eight studies were presented either oral and posters. A call for papers was initiated for a special volume dedicated to the conference contingent into Romanian Astronomical Journal. Another IAU100 conference was organized in Bucharest between 16th and 19th of October 2019. The conference New Horizons in space and planetary science was organized in the framework of the collaboration between the Astronomical Institute of the Romanian Academy and Paris Observatory. Participants from Observatoire de Paris, ENS-Politechnique de Paris, and Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille were attended this meeting. Romanian scientist from the Astronomical Institute, In- stitute of Geodynamics, Romanian Space Agency, and Timis¸oara University lectured during this meeting. This successful meeting allows twenty oral presentations, vari- 3 Celebrate IAU100 in Romania 245 ous exchanges on similar topics, in order to find new common topics for participants. Also, during 2019, members of CNRA were highly involved into the organisa- tion of International Astronomy Olympiad∗ in Piatra Neamt¸, in Romania (organized by the Romanian Ministry of Education). CNRA was also involved into preparing the application file for the future IAU- S364 Symposium ”Multi-scale (time and mass) dynamics of space objects” in Ias¸i (organizer Cat˘ alin˘ Gales¸, the Symposium webpage could be seen at: https://www.math.uaic.ro/ IAU S364/useful-links/). This Symposium will cover the recent advances in the multi-scale dynamics of natu- ral and artificial space objects from various perspectives: modelling, development of new methods and tools to analyze the dynamics, stability analysis, exploration and exploitation of minor bodies. The ”First steps in Astronomy” book was presented in a ninety minutes splinter presentation at the EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 2019 in Geneva, and was attended by more than 1730 participants from 52 countries. The Europlanet 2020 RI project fi- nanced the authors to publish a full teaching astronomy manual in English, Romanian and Hungarian (see references). The questions raised after the presentation indicate that the proper preparation and education in astronomy at all age levels seems to be compulsory. 3. ROMANIAN IAU100 OUTREACH ACTIVITIES Relations between professional astronomers and very enthusiastic people which sustain the development of astronomy via non-governmental organizations (NGO) are becoming more present during the last decade (Bˆırlan et al., 2016). In 2019, several similar activities were made and labeled IAU100: Conferences: • IAU100 Name an exoplanety Name of exoplanet is a IAU initiative of networking, based on voluntary parti- cipation of NCAs of each country. This initiative allocated to each country a star having a discovered exoplanet. The name of the star and its exoplanet is established based on a regular protocol, by a public contest and vote. In this sense, the initiative focus on the communication of astronomical events ∗https://iao2019.physicsnt.ro yhttps://www.iau-100.org/name-exoworlds; http://www.nameexoworlds.iau.org/romania; http://www.astro.ro:8080/articles/ExoPlanet 246 Mirel BIRLANˆ et al. 4 and science to the public and media on each country. NCAs of more than 100 countries answered to this initiative. For Romania, the star and exoplanet is the system XO-1 (star) and XO-1b (its exoplanet). This was a successful project in Romania. More than 181 proposals of names were collected, thus proving the interest for this campaign. The laureate for this campaign, al- ready validated by the IAU Committee is Moldoveanu for the star XO-1 and Negoiu for the planet XO-1b. The IAU record these two names with the follow- ing text: Names of prominent peaks of the Fagaras Mountain Range, representing the highest mountains in Romania. • Bucharest Science Festival, 27 September 2019 (BSF 2019) This initiative allowed the access of more than 500 attendees for visiting the Astronomical Institute of the Romanian Academy, in Bucharest. This is a non- exhaustive example of collaboration with the Romanian NGO Astroclubul Bu- curesti, but also with other entities such is l’Institut Culturel Franc¸ais a` Bucarest. During the event, the visitors attended several scientific presen- tations which took place in the Planetarium Hall. They also learned about as- tronomy and science in general during the frequent guided tours offered by the organizers in the Meridian Hall and the Equatorial Dome. The practical part of astronomy was present during this science festival as several small telescopes were set for the public to watch and learn about the sky. Besides observing the celestial bodies, the participants to BSF 2019 were offered the chance to watch through an optical microscope several fragments of meteorites and learn about their structure and the complex environment were they were formed. • Asteroid Day, 30 June 2019. z International Asteroid Day is an annual global event which is held on the an- niversary of the Siberian Tunguska event that took place on June 30, 1908. This was the largest asteroid impact in the recent history of the Earth. The Astronom- ical Institute of the Romanian Academy was open to the public with a session of presentations held by scientists working on the field of asteroids research. The visitors could learn more about these objects from Romanian astronomers involved in research projects at the international levelx. • Open Doors - S¸coala Altfel / Learn otherwise. Scoala Altfel is a Romanian na- tional program aiming to develop competences on learning and socio-emotional skills among preschool children / students in a non-formal way. In Bucharest and Cluj-Napoca were organized (under the label IAU100) presentations on the popularization of astronomy as well as observations of the real night sky. zhttp://www2.rosa.ro/index.php/en/news-menu/stiri/3642-30-june-2019-is-asteroid-day xhttps://observer.astro.ro/ad 5 Celebrate IAU100 in Romania 247 • Lecture: ”Observing and modeling asteroids: morphology and internal struc- ture” was also presented during the Geosciences Day, an international confer- ence held on 31st of May 2019 in the Aula of the Romanian Academy. • Public lectures labeled IAU100. We can cite here the lectures in Barladˆ (Ti- tle: Asteroizii s¸i viat¸a pe Terra), Galat¸i (Title: Enigmele asteroizilor), Slanic- Prahova (Title: Misiuni spat¸iale de cercetare a