2 January 2024 (Materials updated 31 January)

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

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

Nearly 3,500 astronomers, educators, students, and journalists will gather in New Orleans, Louisiana, from 7 to 11 January 2024 for the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS). This joint conference with the AAS High Energy Astrophysics and Historical Astronomy Divisions will feature a variety of scientific presentations, workshops, town halls, and more. Of particular interest to reporters, the AAS Press Office will also host eight press conferences on the latest discoveries in astronomy, planetary sciences, space sciences, and more. Meeting hashtag: #aas243. 

The venue for this winter's AAS meeting is the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, 900 Convention Center Blvd, New Orleans, LA 70130. The AAS offers complimentary press registration for the meeting to bona fide working journalists and public-information officers (PIOs), as explained below.

Meeting links:

• Main meeting website
• Travel & lodging information
• Daily block schedule
• Press information

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 the Statement of Care and Masking Policy and 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

AAS 243 will be an in-person meeting only; there will be no virtual attendance option for the general meeting. The press conferences, however, can be attended both in person and virtually via Zoom.

In-Person Press Attendance:

The AAS offers complimentary in-person meeting registration to bona fide working journalists and public information officers (PIOs). 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 243 IN-PERSON 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 243 registration page.

Virtual Press Attendance (press conferences only):

If you do not plan to be on-site in New Orleans but you would like to attend the press conferences virtually, contact the AAS Press Office with your name and media affiliation (or “freelance” if applicable); please specify "AAS 243 VIRTUAL press conference attendance" in the subject line. You will be added to a virtual press conference attendance list and will be sent the press conference schedule and Zoom webinar links in advance of the meeting.

Press registration deadline: Wednesday, 3 January 2024.

See our list of current press registrants.

Press Facilities

The AAS will operate a press office in Room 230, Level 2 of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, with working space, printer/photocopier, power strips, and internet connectivity for reporters and PIOs. Thanks to the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) for generously sponsoring the press office with refreshments for on-site press registrants!

Press office staff:

• Susanna Kohler, AAS Press Officer, +1 202-328-2010 x127
• Kerry Hensley, AAS Deputy Press Officer, +1 202-328-2010 x138
• Benjamin Cassese, AAS Media Fellow

AAS 243 Astrobites Media Intern Briley Lewis will also assist in the press office.

There will be a dedicated press interview room in Room 228, Level 2. Use the online signup sheet to reserve this room for use for press interviews at specific dates and times.

Press Conference Schedule, Topics & Speakers

News briefings will be held each morning and afternoon, Monday, 8 January through Thursday, 11 January, in Room 229 on Level 2 of the Ernest N. Morial 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 CST = UTC − 6 hours):

• Monday, 8 January, 10:15 am & 2:15 pm
• Tuesday, 9 January, 10:15 am & 2:15 pm
• Wednesday, 10 January, 10:15 am & 2:15 pm
• Thursday, 11 January, 10:15 am & 2:15 pm

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.

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, 8 January 2024, 10:15 am CST
Dust, Clouds & Darkness (Briefing video)

A Magnetized Dust Ring in the Milky Way's Center
Natalie Butterfield (NRAO)
[420.02]

NASA Telescopes Show Famous Exploded Star in Its Best Light
Dan Milisavljevic (Purdue University)
[331.05] | Press release | Press release

Mystery of Star Formation Revealed by Hearts of Molecular Clouds
Jin Koda (Stony Brook University) & Amanda Lee (U. Mass. Amherst)
[402.08] | Press release | Press release

The Dark Galaxy J0613+52
Karen O'Neil (Green Bank Observatory)
[404.13] | Press release

The Origin of Odd Radio Circles
Alison Coil (University of California, San Diego)
[154.02] | Press release

Monday, 8 January 2024, 2:15 pm CST
Stars, Protostars & More Clouds (Briefing video)

Asymmetric Gamma-Ray Emission from the Quiet Sun
Elena Orlando (University of Trieste and Stanford University)
[240.01]

A Colossal Star Erupts: Examining One of the Largest Stars in the Milky Way As It Fades From View
Narsireddy Anugu (CHARA Array; Georgia State University)
[355.03] | Press Release

Early Evolution of Planetary Disk Structures Seen for the First Time
Cheng-Han Hsieh (Yale University)
[228.03D] | Press Release

The Wondrous 3D World of Protostellar Shocks in NGC 2071
Nicole Karnath (Space Science Institute)
[353.03]

Tuesday, 9 January 2024, 10:15 am CST
Exoplanets and Brown Dwarfs (Briefing video)

Extrasolar Worlds Exhibit Exotic Sandy Clouds at the Equator
Genaro Suarez (American Museum of Natural History)
[254.03] | Press Release

Using Citizen Science to Identify New Ultracool Benchmark Systems
Austin Rothermich (CUNY Graduate Center)
[202.12] | Press Release

JWST Indicates Auroral Signature in an Extremely Cold Brown Dwarf
Jackie Faherty (American Museum of Natural History)
[330.04] | Press Release | Press Release

WASP-69b's Escaping Atmosphere Is Confined to a Tail at Least 7 Planet Radii
Dakotah Tyler (University of California, Los Angeles)
[341.08] | Press Release

Tuesday, 9 January 2024, 2:15 pm CST
High-Energy Phenomena and Their Origins (Briefing video)

Revealing Dual Quasars and Their Host Galaxy With JWST and ALMA
Yuzo Ishikawa (Johns Hopkins University)
[218.04D]

Breaking Cosmic Scales: JWST's Discovery of Unexpectedly Massive Black Holes
Fabio Pacucci (Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian)
[317.02] | Press Release

Revealing the Environment of the Most Distant Fast Radio Burst with the Hubble Space Telescope
Alexa Gordon (Northwestern University)
[349.07] | Press Release | Press Release

Burst Chaser: Unveiling the Mysterious Origin of Gamma-ray Bursts with Citizen Science
Amy Lien (University of Tampa)
[304.06] | Press Release

Seeing Our Sun Through a New Lens: The First Large Catalog of Hot Thermal Solar Flares
Aravind Valluvan (University of California, San Diego)
[362.12] | Press Release

Wednesday, 10 January 2024, 10:15 am CST
Supernovae and Stars (Briefing video)

A 12.4-Day Periodicity in a Close Binary System After a Supernova
Ping Chen (Weizmann Institute of Science)
[349.04] | Press Release

Rare Insight Into the Origins of Type Ia Supernovae Progenitors From a Double Detonation
Estefania Padilla Gonzalez (UC Santa Barbara and Las Cumbres Observatory)
[349.03] | Press Release

Periodic Eruptions of a Supernova Impostor
Mojgan Aghakhanloo (University of Virginia)
[157.08]

Spectacular Nucleosynthesis from Early Massive Stars
Alexander Ji (University of Chicago)
[157.02] | Press Release | Press Release

A New Census of Neutral Clouds in the Milky Way's Nuclear Wind
Jay Lockman (Green Bank Observatory)
[129.09] | Press Release

Wednesday, 10 January 2024, 2:15 pm CST
Stars, Disks & Exoplanets (Briefing video)

Stellar Paternity Tests: Matching High-Latitude B Stars to the Open Clusters of Their Birth
Brandon Schweers and Ginny McSwain (Lehigh University)
[205.02] | Press Release

Weakened Magnetic Braking in the Exoplanet Host Star 51 Pegasi
Travis Metcalfe (White Dwarf Research Corporation)
[254.01] | Press Release

JWST's New View of Beta Pictoris Suggests Recent Episodic Dust Production from an Eccentric, Inclined Secondary Debris Disk
Christopher Stark (NASA Goddard)
[413.06] | Press Release | Press Release

How Do Ultra-Massive Planets Form? Gaining New Insight by Measuring the Orbital Tilt of a Rare Transiting Brown Dwarf
Steven Giacalone (Caltech)
[327.03] | Press Release

An Earth-Sized Addition to a 400-Myr Planetary System in the Ursa Major Moving Group
Alyssa Jankowski and Melinda Soares-Furtado (University of Wisconsin – Madison)
[105.04] | Press Release | Press Release

Thursday, 11 January 2024, 10:15 am CST
High-Energy Universe (Briefing video)

Evidence of a Relic Active Galactic Nucleus Eruption
Kimberly Weaver (NASA Goddard SFC)
[203.17] | Press Release

Unveiling the Most Promising Formation Channel of Fast Radio Bursts Using Local Universe Bursts
Mohit Bhardwaj (Carnegie Mellon University) and Aaron Pearlman (McGill University)
[331.04D] | Press Release | Press Release | Press Release

Evidence for Large-Scale Anisotropy in the Gamma-ray Sky
Alexander Kashlinsky (NASA Goddard SFC)
[441.07] | Press Release

Astronomers Find Spark of Star Birth Across Billions of Years
Michael Calzadilla (MIT)
[442.03D] | Press Release

Thursday, 11 January 2024, 2:15 pm CST
Oddities in the Sky (Briefing video)

A Big Ring on the Sky
Alexia Lopez (Jeremiah Horrocks Institute - University of Central Lancashire)
[354.03] | Press Release

A Potentially Isolated Quiescent Dwarf Galaxy
Timothy Carleton (Arizona State University)
[338.03] | Press Release

Close Encounters of the Supermassive Black Hole Kind: Tidal Disruption Events and What They Can Reveal About Black Holes and Stars in Distant Galaxies
Ananya Bandopadhyay (Syracuse University)
[206.01] | Press Release

Zooniverse People-Powered Research Platform Reaches New Milestones
Laura Trouille (The Adler Planetarium; Zooniverse)

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 LIGO Livingston

A special visit to the LIGO installation in Livingston, Louisiana — one of the two sites to first detect gravitational waves — will be conducted for members of the media on Friday, 12 January 2024. The visit will include scientific presentations, a tour of the site, access to the science center exhibit hall, and time for conversations with LIGO scientists. This trip will be free of charge, courtesy of LIGO, and include transportation between the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center and LIGO Livingston and a catered lunch. The tour will leave the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center at 9:00 am CST on Friday, 12 January and return at 3:00 pm CST. 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 243 that may be of interest to journalists. 

For additional information, visit the AAS 243 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

During the meeting, the AAS Press Office will post announcements of interest to reporters on Twitter at @AAS_Press. Other AAS Twitter handles include @AAS_Office, @AAS_Policy, @AAS_Publishing, and @AASNova. Journalists (and scientists) tweeting from the meeting are encouraged to use the hashtag #aas243.

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.