The Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics (also known as the Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, abbreviated as ASIAA or IAA. ) is a research institute of the

national academy A national academy is an organizational body, usually operating with state financial support and approval, that co-ordinates scholarly research activities and standards for academic disciplines, most frequently in the sciences but also the humanit ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

Academia Sinica Academia Sinica (AS, la, 1=Academia Sinica, 3=Chinese Academy; ), headquartered in Nangang, Taipei, is the national academy of Taiwan. Founded in Nanking, the academy supports research activities in a wide variety of disciplines, ranging from ...

. ASIAA is currently located in the Astronomy and Mathematics Building at the

National Taiwan University National Taiwan University (NTU; ) is a public research university in Taipei, Taiwan. The university was founded in 1928 during Japanese rule as the seventh of the Imperial Universities. It was named Taihoku Imperial University and served d ...

Taipei Taipei (), officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about southwest of the n ...

and also has a field office in

Hilo Hilo () is a census-designated place (CDP) and the largest settlement in Hawaii County, Hawaii, Hawaii County, Hawaii, United States, which encompasses the Hawaii (island), Island of Hawaii. The population was 44,186 according to the 2020 United ...

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

. ASIAA was officially established on June 1, 2010, with Paul Ho being the first director.

Research

The research areas of ASIAA range from the

Solar System The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Solar S ...

star formation Star formation is the process by which dense regions within molecular clouds in The "medium" is present further soon.-->interstellar space

galaxies A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, dark matter, bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek ' (), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar System. ...

and

cosmology Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount (lexicographer), Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', and in 1731 taken up in ...

. ASIAA has either led or co-led the construction and operation of several telescopes, including the AMiBA Telescope to study the cosmic microwave background radiation (also known as "Lee Array"), the

Taiwanese-American Occultation Survey Taiwanese Americans () are Americans who carry full or partial ancestry from Taiwan. This includes American-born citizens who descend from migrants from Taiwan. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, 49% of Taiwanese Americans lived in the state of Califo ...

, the Submillimeter Array and many other research projects.

Projects

ASIAA is involved in several research projects, including: *

Taiwanese–American Occultation Survey The Taiwanese–American Occultation Survey (TAOS) is a robotic survey of the Outer Solar System. TAOS uses an array of four 50 cm aperture telescopes to monitor background stars awaiting the alignment of an Outer Solar System with a star tar ...

(TAOS) * Transneptunian Automated Occultation Survey (TAOS II) * Yuan Tseh Lee Array for Microwave Background Anisotropy (AMiBA) * Theoretical Institute for Advanced Research in Astrophysics (TIARA) * Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) Survey *

Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) is an astronomical interferometer of 66 radio telescopes in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile, which observe electromagnetic radiation at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths. The ar ...

(ALMA) * The

Greenland Telescope The Greenland Telescope is a radio telescope that is currently installed and operating at the Thule Air Base in north-western Greenland. It will later be deployed at the Summit Station research camp, located at the highest point of the Greenland ...

* Space Infrared Telescope for Cosmology and Astrophysics (SPICA)

Observatories

ASIAA has access to several observatories: * Submillimeter Array (SMA) * Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) *

Subaru Telescope is the telescope of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, located at the Mauna Kea Observatory on Hawaii. It is named after the open star cluster known in English as the Pleiades. It had the largest monolithic primary mirror in the wo ...

The ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...

Directors

Directors for the re-establishment of ASIAA

Typhoon Lee Typhoon Lee (; born 1948) is an astrophysicist and geochemist at Academia Sinica, Taiwan, where he specializes in isotope geochemistry and nuclear astrophysics . Lee received his Ph.D. in astronomy at the University of Texas in 1977. His ho ...

(1993–1994) * Chi Yuan (1994–1997) * (1997 – 2002 August) * (September 2002 – August 2003) * Sun Kwok (September 2003 – 2005 August) * Paul Ho (September 2005 – May 2010)

Directors of ASIAA

* Paul Ho (June 2010 – August 2014) * You-Hua Chu (September 2014 – August 2020) * Shiang-Yu Wang (Acting Director) (September 2020 – August 2021) * Ue-Li Pen (September 2021 – present)

Education and public outreach

public with latest astronomical research results by broadcasting videos—some are in-house produced, some with English -->Chinese subtitles translated.Academia Sinica Headquarters organizes its Open House Day annually in late October or November to raise awareness and interest in science among the public. All of the 31 institutes of the Academia Sinica actively participate in educational entertainment programs.

External links

Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics

Advanced Theoretical Astrophysics Research Centre
* {{Authority control 2010 establishments in Taiwan Academia Sinica Research institutes established in 2010 Space program of Taiwan