SIMBAD is an astronomical

Astronomy

Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...

 database of objects beyond the Solar System

Solar System

The Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun...

. It is maintained by the Centre de données astronomiques de Strasbourg

Centre de Données astronomiques de Strasbourg

The Centre de données astronomiques de Strasbourg is a data hub which collects and distributes astronomical information. It was established in 1972 under the name Centre de Données Stellaires...

 (CDS), France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

.

SIMBAD was created by merging the Catalog of Stellar Identifications

Catalog of Stellar Identifications

The Catalog of Stellar Identifications is a star catalog which was constructed to facilitate cross-referencing between different star catalogs...

 (CSI) and the Bibliographic Star Index as they existed at the Meudon

Meudon

Meudon is a municipality in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is in the département of Hauts-de-Seine. It is located from the center of Paris.-Geography:...

 Computer Centre until 1979, and then expanded by additional source data from other catalogues and the academic literature. The first on-line interactive version, known as Version 2, was made available in 1981. Version 3, developed in the C language and running on UNIX stations at the Strasbourg Observatory, was released in 1990. Fall of 2006 saw the release of Version 4 of the database, now stored in PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL, often simply Postgres, is an object-relational database management system available for many platforms including Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, MS Windows and Mac OS X. It is released under the PostgreSQL License, which is an MIT-style license, and is thus free and open source software...

, and the supporting software, now written entirely in Java

Java (programming language)

Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...

.

As of 14 June 2007, SIMBAD contains information for 3,824,195 objects under 11,200,785 different names, with 209,451 bibliographical references and 5,455,841 bibliographic citations.

An asteroid

Asteroid

Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...

, 4692 SIMBAD

4692 SIMBAD

4692 SIMBAD is a main-belt asteroid discovered on November 4, 1983 by B. A. Skiff at Flagstaff. It was named in reference to the astronomical database SIMBAD.- External links :*...

  is named in its honour.

See also

• NASA's Planetary Data System
  Planetary Data System
  The Planetary Data System is a distributed data system that NASA uses to archive data collected by Solar System robotic missions and ground-based support data associated with those missions. PDS is managed by NASA Headquarters' Planetary Sciences Division. The PDS is an active archive that makes...
  
   (PDS) - a database of information on solar system objects, maintained by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
  Jet Propulsion Laboratory
  Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center located in the San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles County, California, United States. The facility is headquartered in the city of Pasadena on the border of La Cañada Flintridge and Pasadena...
  
  , California Institute of Technology
  California Institute of Technology
  The California Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Pasadena, California, United States. Caltech has six academic divisions with strong emphases on science and engineering...
  
  .
• NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database
  NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database
  The NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database is an on-line astronomical database for astronomers that collates and cross-correlates astronomical information on extragalactic objects...
  
   (NED) - a database of information on objects outside the Milky Way, also maintained by JPL.
• NASA Star and Exoplanet Database
  NASA Star and Exoplanet Database
  The NASA Star and Exoplanet Database is an on-line astronomical stellar and exoplanet catalog and data service that collates and cross-correlates astronomical data and information on exoplanets and their host stars. NStED is dedicated to collecting and serving important public data sets involved...
  
   (NStED) - a database of stars and exoplanets, maintained by NExScI.
• Bibcode
  Bibcode
  The bibcode is an identifier used by a number of astronomical data systems to specify literature references. The bibcode was developed to be used in SIMBAD and the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database , but is now used more widely, for example, in the NASA Astrophysics Data System...
  
  

External links

• SIMBAD Web interface
• SIMBAD Web interface, alternate