International Astronomical Naming Commission

The International Astronomical Naming Commission or IANC is a foundation with international ties set up to record, change, and document the naming of all known astronomical bodies. After over 11 years in the making, the IANC was set up in April 2010 to become the only internationally recognized and accepted commission available to index and categorize different astronomical objects with custom, usually more specific and formal, naming. The IANC is the only commission that submits the unique International Astronomical Naming Commission Database accepted to the National Library, The Library of Congress, and many other internationally known protected and copy-written government and scientific agencies. The IANC claims to keep its partners extremely limited to keep from double cataloging objects and erroneously indexing its listings. The IANC currently only accepts documentation and indexing from http://www.iancstarnaming.com. As of November 2014, the IANC has changed their name to the IAU.

Fraudulent naming services

The IANC also has helped cut down on fraudulent claims made due to the dramatic misguiding and misinformation involving the naming of extraterrestrial objects. Many different companies, particularly on the internet, claimed the ability to offer the service of giving astronomical entities custom names for a fee. Although well known as a fraudulent service, many individuals had fallen victim to these obvious scams.

IANC future

The IANC is currently not a well known commission at all. Although founded in April 2010, the commission is expected to go public June or July 2010, and may claim the backing of thousands of observatories, museums, N.A.S.A. and other government agencies worldwide. Due to this reason, it is speculated that the IANC will become highly publicized in 2010.