consortium of U.S. universities that directs the operations of federally funded astronomical research centres. AURA was incorporated in 1957 with seven member institutions; more than 50 years later, 34 U.S. universities and seven foreign universities were member institutions of AURA.

Under contract with the U.S. National Science Foundation, AURA currently manages Kitt Peak National Observatory, near Tucson, Ariz., and Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, near La Serena, Chile. It also manages the two telescopes of the Gemini Observatory—one of which is on Mauna Kea in Hawaii and the other on Cerro Pachon in Chile—and the National Solar Observatory, which has telescopes at Sacramento Peak in New Mexico and at Kitt Peak. In addition, it manages for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md., where observational data from the Hubble Space Telescope are processed and analyzed.