New SOFA software release includes Time Scale transformations

1 December 2010

SOFA (Standards of Fundamental Astronomy) is an IAU Service that operates under Division 1 (Fundamental Astronomy). It has developed a set of software routines that implement official IAU algorithms for fundamental-astronomy computations.

The total number of routines is 186, comprising 131 astronomy routines supported by 55 vector/matrix routines. The software incorporates the IAU (2006) precession model that came into force at the start of 2009. There is also a "cookbook" that introduces the SOFA routines associated with precession-nutation and Earth rotation.

A new release of the software was made on 2010 December 01. The most significant change is the introduction of 18 new routines (available in both Fortran and C) to support time scale transformations together with a "cookbook" on Time Scale and Calendar Tools.

The Web address of the SOFA home page is: http://www.iausofa.org/

Further information on the new release is available at: http://www.iausofa.org/2010_1201.html