Elena Y. Kilpio

THE RUSSIAN VIRTUAL OBSERVATORY: INFORMATION HUB

The Russian Virtual Observatory (RVO) will be an integral component of the International Virtual Observatory, which will link the archives of all the worlds major observatories into one distributed database, with powerful tools to optimize the extraction of science from the data. As a result, data from all the worlds major observatories will be available to all professional astronomers, and to the public. The information hub of the RVO has the main goals of integrating resources of astronomical data accumulated in Russian observatories and institutions and providing transparent access for scientific and educational purposes to the distributed information and data services. One of the general-purpose data centres for astronomy is the Moscow Centre for Astronomical Data (CAD). CAD has been systematically collecting and distributing astronomical data for more than 20 years. The CAD staff will carry out the activities on construction of the information hub of the RVO.