Virtual Observatory in Astrophysics

In astrophysics, data preservation is really important, mainly because objects are far far away and that an observational project (satellite, telescopes) is very expensive, time consuming and very difficult to redo when it is over. Nevertheless Many projects have been undertaken and more and more data are available to the scientific community. The International Virtual Observatory Alliance (IVOA), formed in 2002, gather efforts on data standardisation and dissemination in Astrophysics. Endorsed by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the Virtual Observatory consists on describing all validated astrophysical data, the format of them, the way to disseminate these data, protocols and softwares. This new way of data analysis is rather in advance in the interoperability of tools. In a context of cooperation between countries, the Virtual Observatory shows a good example of the new era of astrophysical analysis in massive and distributed data exchange