The Maldives Science Society proudly announces that this society has been acknowledged by the International Astronomy Union [IAU] as the national node [the single point of contact] for the International Year of Astronomy 2009 [IYA2009]. Mr. Ahid Rasheed, one of the four founders of this society, has been chosen to act as chairman in the society’s capacity as the national node.

Founded in 1919, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) is an international union with the mission of promoting and safeguarding the science of astronomy in all its aspects through international cooperation.

IYA2009 celebrates the momentous event of the first astronomical use of a telescope by Galileo Galilei between AD 1564 and AD 1642. A Tuscan physicist and mathematician, Galileo played a key role in the scientific revolution and has often been referred to as the father of modern observational astronomy.

IYA2009 is also the anniversary of many other historic events such as the Johannes Kepler’s AD 1609 publication of Astronoma Nova and Christiaan Huygen’s AD 1659 publication of Systema Saturnium. Kepler and Huygen are both physicists and mathematicians whose contributions to physics have had an enormous impact on the course of modern science.

Modern astronomy’s quadricentennial, the IYA2009 is an international celebration of various other astronomical and scientific milestones and is indeed a global collaboration as well for one of the holy grails of many an inquisitive human being _ the search for our cosmic origin.

The science of astronomy embodies millennia of collaboration across a broad spectrum of human backgrounds such as geography, race, religion and gender, and is a classic instance of science’s contribution towards the promotion of cross-boundary cooperation and collaboration.

The IYA2009 invites astronomers and people around the world to look up in wonder into the staggering vastness we call space and attempt at seeking answers to some of life’s biggest questions.

Who knows what awaits us!