Introduction

Extract

Over the last few decades phenomena involving high energy particles (mostly electrons) and/or photons have become increasingly part of the astronomical work. Opening new spectral windows has revealed many phenomena that have deeply changed our perception of the Universe. High energy astrophysics, as this field of astronomy is known, is now very well integrated in the astronomical research. This is shown by the fact that the high energy astrophysics results are published in the leading astronomy and astrophysics journals of the world rather than anywhere else. Nonetheless, this still young field has not yet quite found its way in the structure and working of the IAU.