244th meeting

Press Information

244
Madison, Wisconsin
244th meeting of the American Astronomical Society
Madison, Wisconsin
9 – 13 June 2024
Links

3 June 2024 (Materials updated 18 June)

Contact:
Dr. Susanna Kohler
AAS Press Officer
+1 202-328-2010 x127

Dr. Kerry Hensley
AAS Deputy Press Officer
+1 202-328-2010 x138

Astronomers, educators, students, and journalists will gather in Madison, Wisconsin, from 9 to 13 June 2024 for the 244th meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS). This joint conference with the AAS Laboratory Astrophysics Division (LAD) will feature a variety of scientific presentations, workshops, town halls, and more. Of particular interest to reporters, the AAS Press Office will also host six press conferences on the latest discoveries in astronomy, planetary sciences, space sciences, and more. Meeting hashtag: #aas244. 

The venue for this summer's AAS meeting is the Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center (1 John Nolen Dr, Madison, WI 53703). The AAS offers complimentary press registration for the meeting to bona fide working journalists and public-information officers (PIOs), as explained below.

Meeting links:

Important Preliminaries

All attendees at the meeting — including press registrants — are expected to follow our Guide to AAS Meeting Etiquette, Anti-Harassment Policy for AAS & Division Meetings & Activities, and Code of Ethics. In addition, attendees agree to our Event Photography/Videography Policy. Please read these guidelines/policies before you come to New Orleans; your participation in the meeting is taken to signify your acknowledgment that you have read them and you agree to adhere to them.

Press Registration

The AAS offers complimentary press registration to bona fide working journalists and PIOs who meet the eligibility criteria, as described on the AAS press website.

There will be two options available to press registrants at AAS 244:

  1. In-Person Press – Full Meeting Registration
    This option provides admittance to all in-person meeting events, sessions, and spaces, and it includes access to all virtual content. We ask that you only select the full registration if you do intend to go to Madison, so that we can obtain an approximate on-site head count in advance.
  2. Virtual Press Registration
    This option provides online access to limited meeting content, which will include press conferences, live-streamed plenary talks, the NASA and NSF town halls, and a virtual-only oral session; the iPoster gallery; and the AAS 244 Slack workspace. Content excluded: in-person receptions, workshops, press tour, town halls (except for NASA and NSF), and all oral sessions (except for the virtual-only oral session).

To request press registration, first check our eligibility criteria, then contact the AAS Press Office with your name and media affiliation (or “freelance” if applicable); please specify "AAS 244 IN-PERSON press registration" or "AAS 244 VIRTUAL press registration" in the subject line. If your eligibility is confirmed, you'll receive a special promotional code that you can use to register for the meeting the same way regular attendees do, i.e., via the AAS 244 registration page.

Press registration deadline: Wednesday, 5 June 2024.

See our list of current press registrants.

Press Facilities

The AAS will operate a press office in Meeting Room P on Level 4 of the Monona Terrace Convention Center, with working space, printer/photocopier, power strips, and internet connectivity for reporters and PIOs.

Press office staff:

AAS 244 Astrobites Media Intern Nathalie Korhonen Cuestas will also assist in the press office.

There will be no dedicated press interview space at this meeting, but press registrants can request to use the press conference room to conduct interviews when briefings are not being held. To do so, please use the online signup sheet here.

Press Conference Schedule, Topics & Speakers

News briefings will be held each morning and afternoon, Monday, 10 June, through Wednesday, 12 June, in Hall of Ideas Room F on Level 4 of the Monona Terrace Convention Center. The press conference room will be equipped with a sound system and internet connectivity. Note that morning and afternoon briefings occur in parallel with morning and afternoon oral science sessions. 

Following is the press-conference program, which remains subject to change (all times are CDT = UTC − 5 hours):

Briefing audio, slides, and video will be available via a Zoom webinar, where registered journalists will be able to ask questions of the presenters via text chat with an on-site press officer. The briefings will also be livestreamed to the AAS Press Office YouTube channel, where attendees will be able to view the stream but not ask questions. (See below.)

In [square brackets] under the speakers’ names are the abstract or session numbers on which their presentations are based. Next to the session number, the designation IP or V indicates whether the speaker will be presenting their press briefing in person or virtually, respectively.

All findings are embargoed until the time of presentation at the meeting. “Time of presentation” means the start time of the oral or poster session in which the paper will be given, or the start time of the corresponding press conference (if any), whichever comes first. See the complete AAS embargo policy for more information.

Note: All new discoveries are subject to confirmation by independent teams of scientists. Inclusion here does not imply endorsement by the American Astronomical Society. The AAS does not endorse individual scientific results.

Monday, 10 June 2024, 10:15 am CDT
Disks, Atmospheres, and Astronomy from the Moon (Briefing video)

Should I Stay or Should I Go: What Governs Circumstellar Disk Lifetimes
Lisa Prato (Lowell Observatory)
[202.05] | IP | NRAO press release

The Spectroscopic Case for a Recent Giant Collision Around Beta Pic
Christine Chen (Johns Hopkins University / Space Telescope Science Institute)
[410.02] | V | Press release

JWST Observations of a Feature-Rich Sub-Neptune Atmosphere
Thomas Beatty (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
IP | Press release

The Dawn of Radio Astronomy from the Moon: ROLSES on Intuitive Machines' Odysseus Lander
Jack Burns (University of Colorado Boulder)
[210.01] | IP | Press release

Monday, 10 June 2024, 2:15 pm CDT
Stars and Their Antics (Briefing video)

A Hypervelocity Subdwarf Passing Through the Solar Neighborhood
Adam Burgasser (UCSD)
[406.01] | IP | Press release

Evidence of a Multi-Component Eccentric Disk Induced by a Planet Around CI Tau
Janus Kozdon (Clemson University)
[109.04] | IP | Press release

The Long-Term Post-Explosion Evolution of a Symbiotic Nova
Ravi Sankrit (Space Telescope Science Institute)
[319.01] | IP | Press release

Uncovering Three Past Massive Star-Forming Complexes that Shaped Local Interstellar Structures
Cameren Swiggum (University of Vienna)
[111.05] | IP | Press release

JWST as a Supernova Discovery Machine: Catching ~40 New Explosions in the JADES Deep Field Each Year
Christa DeCoursey (University of Arizona) and Justin Pierel (Space Telescope Science Institute)
[319.03] | IP | Press release

Tuesday, 11 June 2024, 10:15 am CDT
From the Galactic Center to the Galactic Disk (Briefing video)

Nine Sagittarius A* X-ray Flares Detected by NuSTAR Between 2016-2024
Grace Sanger-Johnson (Michigan State University)
[115.01] | IP | Press release

Galactic Center Molecular Cloud "Bridge" Reaching Peak X-ray Luminosity After 20 Years of Brightening
Jack Uteg (Michigan State University)
[115.02] | IP | Press release

The Galactic Center Magnetic Field Distribution Using the FIREPLACE Survey
Dylan Paré (Villanova University)
V

Magnetic Field in an Unusually Active Star-Forming Region in the Galactic Center
Jianhan (Roy) Zhao (UC Los Angeles)
[131.09] | V

Dust-Free Clouds in the Galactic Disk?
Anthony Minter (Green Bank Observatory)
[302.04] | IP | Press release

Tuesday, 11 June 2024, 2:15 pm CDT
Massive Black Holes and Surprising Spirals (Briefing video)

Cosmic Black-Hole Growth Tracked by Combining X-ray Surveys and Supercomputer Simulations
Fan Zou (Penn State University)
[208.01] | IP | Press release

Discovery of an Accelerating Quasar Wind with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
Robert Wheatley and Catherine Grier (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
[208.04] | IP | Press release

Massive Black Holes in Low-Mass Galaxies: What Happened to the X-ray Corona?
Riccardo Arcodia (MIT)
[208.07] | IP | Press release

JWST Reveals a Surprisingly High Fraction of Galaxies Being Spiral-Like in the Early Universe
Vicki Kuhn (University of Missouri Columbia)
[331.03] | IP | Press release

Wednesday, 12 June 2024, 10:15 am CDT
More Stars and Distant Worlds (Briefing video)

Twin Jets and Twin Disks: JWST and ALMA Discoveries in a Young Multiple System
Mary Barsony
[413.01] | IP | NRAO press release | NASA press release

X-ray Emission of Nearby Low-Mass and Sun-Like Stars with Directly Imageable Habitable Zones
Breanna Binder (California State Polytechnic University, Pomona)
[219.01] | V | Press release

First Observations of Brown Dwarfs in Globular Clusters with JWST
Roman Gerasimov (University of Notre Dame)
[219.04] | IP

The Fate of Oceans: Survival of Oceans on Habitable Planets Orbiting White Dwarfs
Juliette Becker (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
[407.07] | IP | Press release

Wednesday, 12 June 2024, 2:15 pm CDT
Citizen Science from the 2023/2024 Solar Eclipses (Briefing video)

Citizen CATE 2024: Extending Eclipse Totality with a Community-Participant Distributed Observing Network
Amir Caspi (Southwest Research Institute)
V

Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project: Science from the Edge of Space
Angela Des Jardins (Montana State University)
IP | Press release

The LightSound Project: Experiencing Solar Eclipses Through Sound
Dawn Davies (Hill Country Alliance)
IP | Press release (PDF)

Capturing the Awe and Wonder of Solar Eclipses Through Changes in Our Brainwaves: Piloting Project AWE
Kate Russo (Being in the Shadow)
IP | Press release (PDF)

Press Conference Livestreams

Journalists (and anyone else) unable to attend the meeting in person may tune in to our livestreamed briefings via one of two methods:

  1. Meeting registrants may access the livestreams via Zoom webinar links that will be sent out to registered journalists in advance of the meeting. Viewers who join the livestreams via these links will be able to ask questions via a Q&A chat box.
  2. Non-registrants may access the livestreams via the AAS Press Office YouTube channel. Viewers here will not be able to ask questions.

After the meeting, archived webcasts will be freely available via our online archive, which links to the individual briefing videos on the AAS Press Office YouTube channel.

Press Tour to Wisconsin Physical Sciences Lab

A special visit to the Wisconsin Physical Sciences Lab, led by Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center (WIPAC) director Jim Madsen, will be conducted for members of the media on Thursday, 13 June 2024. The visit will include a tour of the Lab and the IceCube equipment being built there, some context and updates on IceCube’s latest results, and time for conversations with WIPAC scientists. This trip will be free of charge, courtesy of WIPAC, and include transportation between the Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center and the Physical Sciences Lab. The tour will leave the Convention Center at 10:00 am CT on Thursday, 13 June, and return by 1:00 pm CT. Registration for the tour has closed, but you may add your name to the waitlist here.

Additional Program Highlights

Please see the 1st Media Advisory for a list of additional program highlights at AAS 244 that may be of interest to journalists. 

For additional information, visit the AAS 244 Block Schedule, which can be filtered by session type to identify specific events of interest like Plenaries, Town Halls, or Attendee Events. 

AAS on Twitter/X

During the meeting, the AAS Press Office will post announcements of interest to reporters on Twitter/X at @AAS_Press. Other AAS Twitter/X handles include @AAS_Office, @AAS_Policy, @AAS_Publishing, and @AASNova. Journalists (and scientists) tweeting from the meeting are encouraged to use the hashtag #aas244.

A Note on Visas and Travel Restrictions to the United States

If you are an international traveler, you are responsible for determining any current travel restrictions and visa requirements that apply to you. Additional information is available from the US State Department and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. If you need a letter for a visa application certifying that you are registered for the meeting, please request your complimentary press registration as soon as possible; only after you complete it can the AAS Press Office send you such a letter.

AAS Press List

If you don't already receive press releases by email from the AAS Press Office, you should sign up now to guarantee that you receive future meeting advisories as well as other important announcements. To sign up for the AAS Press List at no charge, please fill out and submit the form you'll find linked from our Join the AAS Press List page. With few exceptions, only accredited journalists and PIOs are eligible to receive press releases from the AAS, as described on our press-credentials page.