A Provenance Data Model for Astronomy

In Astronomy as well as in other sciences it is of crucial importance to have information about the origin and history of data, i.e. its provenance information. The IVOA Provenance Data Model shall record this information in a consistent and interoperable way for astronomical data. This will enable scientists to use common tools for discovering data based on their provenance and help them to gain a better understanding of the data, its processing and to judge the data's quality and reliability.