About Progress in Astronomy

Progress in Astronomy

Progress in Astronomy is a Chinese-language quarterly review journal published in Shanghai under the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Its Chinese title is 天文学进展, in pinyin Tianwenxue Jinzhan. Founded in June 1983, it is sponsored by the Chinese Astronomical Society and the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, supervised by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and its editor-in-chief is Hou Jin-liang. The journal carries ISSN 1000-8349, attested in its own article DOIs, and it publishes review articles on the most recent developments in astronomical research worldwide. Its volume sequence runs from volume 19 in 2001 to volume 43 in 2025, and it is still publishing in 2026, making it one of the longest-lived specialist astronomy journals in China.

Founding in 1983

Progress in Astronomy was founded in June 1983, in the period when Chinese scientific publishing was rebuilding and expanding after the late 1970s. A survey of Chinese astronomical publications presented to an International Astronomical Union colloquium listed it among the four regularly issued astronomy journals of China, alongside Acta Astronomica Sinica, Acta Astrophysica Sinica and Astronomy Amateur, and its table of publications recorded Progress in Astronomy as established in 1983, appearing quarterly, with some 300 papers already to its name by the late 1980s. Most Chinese astronomical publications of that survey dated from after the late 1970s, and Progress in Astronomy belonged to that generation: a new kind of journal for a research community that needed, in Chinese, a systematic account of a fast-moving international science.

Sponsors and editorial home

The journal is supervised by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and sponsored jointly by the Chinese Astronomical Society, the national learned society for astronomy, and the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in whose city, Shanghai, the journal is published. Its editor-in-chief is Hou Jin-liang, a Shanghai Astronomical Observatory astronomer. This combination of sponsors gives the journal a dual character: it is the observatory's journal in practical terms, produced within one of China's historic astronomical institutions, and at the same time a journal of the national astronomical community, answerable to the society that represents astronomers across the country. The observatory's own description of the journal, reproduced in Chinese Academy of Sciences channels, calls it one of the key astronomical journals in China.

Character: a review journal

Progress in Astronomy is, by design, primarily a review journal rather than a journal of original research reports. Its publishers state that it publishes review articles on the most recent developments in astronomical research from around the world, articles on the frontiers of science, research notes, special lectures and reports on scientific activities, together with a small number of high-quality research papers. That remit shapes everything about the journal. Where a research journal tells its readers what one team has just done, Progress in Astronomy tells the Chinese astronomical community where whole fields are going: it synthesises, surveys and explains. For graduate students entering the field and for researchers moving into a new sub-discipline, such reviews, written in Chinese by specialists, are a standard point of entry into the literature.

Scope across astronomy

The journal's coverage spans the breadth of the science: astrophysics, fundamental astronomy and astronomical technology and methods, the three divisions into which Chinese astronomy itself is conventionally organised. Its articles have addressed subjects as various as cosmic rays, radio telescopes, time scales and Earth orientation, the last two reflecting the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory's historic strengths in timekeeping and Earth rotation research. A representative recent item is the review of project applications and funding in the astronomy discipline of the National Natural Science Foundation of China for 2024, published in volume 43, number 1, in March 2025, which analysed applications and awards across astrophysics, fundamental astronomy and astronomical technology, a service article for the whole national community of the kind a review journal attached to the national society is well placed to publish.

Publication pattern and volumes

The journal is quarterly, with four issues making up each annual volume. Its volume arithmetic is regular and confirms its 1983 start: volume 19 appeared in 2001 and volume 43 in 2025, exactly the sequence expected of an annual volume count beginning in 1983. The 2025 volume opened with its March issue, volume 43, number 1, and the journal remains active into 2026. Article DOIs in the journal follow the pattern built on its ISSN, as in the DOI 10.3969/j.issn.1000-8349.2025.01.11 carried by the National Natural Science Foundation review in that March 2025 issue, which is also the attestation on which the ISSN given in this profile rests. More than four decades of unbroken quarterly publication place the journal among the most durable titles in Chinese science publishing.

Indexing and discoverability

The journal is cited by the major Chinese indexing systems, including CNKI, the Chinese Science Citation Database and the Chinese Science and Technology Paper and Citation Database, and abroad by the Astrophysics Data System, the principal bibliographic service used by astronomers worldwide. Inclusion in the Astrophysics Data System is particularly significant for a Chinese-language title, because it places the journal's reviews within the same discovery environment that astronomers use for the international literature. Its presence in the Chinese citation databases likewise means its articles count within the evaluation systems by which Chinese research institutions measure publication, one reason review articles in the journal are written and cited with care.

Relationship to Chinese Astronomy and Astrophysics

Selected articles from Progress in Astronomy are translated into English and published in the separate journal Chinese Astronomy and Astrophysics, which names Progress in Astronomy among its source journals. That translation channel gives the journal a second, international life: a review written in Chinese for the domestic community can, when selected, reach readers of English worldwide in translated form. The relationship also clarifies the journal's identity for directory users. Progress in Astronomy is the original Chinese-language review journal published in Shanghai; Chinese Astronomy and Astrophysics is a distinct English-language translation journal, listed separately in this directory, and the two should not be confused despite their close connection.

The Shanghai Astronomical Observatory context

The journal's home institution, the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, is one of China's two relatively independent observatories within the Chinese Academy of Sciences system, alongside Purple Mountain Observatory, under the broader structure headed by the National Astronomical Observatories. Shanghai's astronomical history runs back through the observatory publications of the earlier twentieth century, and the observatory today conducts research across astrophysics, astrometry and astronomical technology. A review journal produced in such an institution draws its authors and editors from the observatory's own research community and from the national society's membership, and its coverage of topics such as time scales and Earth orientation reflects the host observatory's own scientific traditions.

Readership and significance

Progress in Astronomy serves Chinese-reading astronomers: researchers who need an authoritative survey of a neighbouring field, graduate students building the background for a thesis, and observatory scientists following developments beyond their own specialism. Its significance is a matter of longevity and function. Founded in 1983, sponsored by the Chinese Astronomical Society and the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, edited in Shanghai and indexed in the field's main international database, it has spent more than forty years performing the essential review function for one of the world's largest national astronomy communities, and, through translation of selected articles, carrying Chinese astronomical scholarship to readers abroad. In a directory of the world's news and specialist media, it stands as China's established Chinese-language review journal of astronomy.