Saturday, 6 January 2024

Physics of the Cosmos & Cosmic Origins + Astronomy on Tap Event [Flyer PDF]

Time	Topic	Speaker
7:00pm - 9:00pm	Supermassive Black Holes: Monsters of the Universe	Ryan Hickox (Dartmouth College)
7:00pm - 9:00pm	Trivia Game: Challenge your cosmic knowledge and participate in our interactive trivia game. Prizes await those who showcase their astronomical prowess.
7:00pm - 9:00pm	From the Big Bang to Biosignatures: Revealing the ~14 Billion Year Story of How the Cosmos Became Habitable with NASA	Rachael Beaton (STScI)

Sunday, 7 January 2024

Physics of the Cosmos & Physics of the Cosmos Program Analysis Group Session

Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, Room: 243

Time	Topic	Speakers	Presentation
9:00am – 9:15am	CSs	F. Civano and B. Humensky	[PDF]
9:15am – 10:05am	CoS SIG	R. Hounsell: Introduction	[PDF]
		Mirocha: Astrophysics and Cosmology with SPHEREx	[PDF]
		R. Gerras: Updates on Simons Observatory	[PDF]
		D. Scolnic: Cosmological Measurements with Roman from Type Ia Supernovae	[PDF]
10:05am – 10:20am	GTN SAG	E. Burns: GTN SAG Report Summary & Action Items	[PDF] (458MB)
10:20am – 10:35am	TDAMMComm SAG	J. Racusin: TDAMMComm SAG Report Status & Updates	[PDF]
10:35am – 10:50am	Break
10:50am – 11:10am	START Talk	J. O’Meara and C. Dressing: PhysCOS Community Involvement in START Activities	[PDF]
11:10am – 12:05pm	XR SIG	Introduction	[PDF]
		B. Williams: XRISM First Observations	[PDF] (443MB)
		K. Madsen: Updates from Athena	[PDF]
		D Pooley: X-ray Precursor Science Gaps	[PDF]
		Open Discussion
12:05pm – 12:15pm	GR SIG	M. Errando (GR SIG Co-Chair): News from SIG and Updates on Precursor Science Gaps	[PDF]
12:15pm – 12:50pm	GW SIG	C. Mingarelli: Introduction	[PDF]
12:50pm – 2:00pm	Lunch Break

Time-Domain and Multi-Messenger SIG Session

Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, Room: 244 / 245

Time	Topic	Speakers	Presentation
2:00pm – 2:05pm	Opening	Eric Burns Ian Crossfield	[PDF]
2:05pm – 2:10pm	Roman	Rebekah Hounsell	[PDF]
2:10pm – 2:20pm	ULTRASAT	Brad Cenko	[PDF]
2:20pm – 2:30pm	NEO Surveyor	Roc Cutri	[PDF]
2:30pm – 3:00pm	Discussion		[PDF]

NASA Joint PAG Session

Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, Room: 244 / 245

Time	Topic	Speakers
3:00pm – 3:05pm	Opening Remarks	Peter Kurczynski
3:05pm – 3:30pm	Overview	Shouleh Nikzad (COPAG EC Chair) Justin Finke (PhysPAG EC Chair) Ilaria Pascussi (ExEP EC Chair)
3:30pm – 3:45pm	New Great Observatories SAG	Grant Trembley
3:45pm – 4:15pm	Prepared Questions	Discussion with Mark Clampin
4:15pm – 5:00pm	Open Q&A [Ask a Question]	Moderators: Peter Kurczynski, Francesca Civano, Brian Humensky, Swara Ravindranath, Eric Mamajek, and Karl Stapelfeldt

Monday, 8 January 2024

NASA Town Hall

Ernest N. Morial Convention Center

Meeting	Time	Location
NASA Town Hall	12:45pm – 1:45pm CT	Great Hall A

NASA Cosmic Pathfinders Program

Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, Room: 219
1:00pm – 2:30pm CT

The newly established NASA Cosmic Pathfinders Program was created to ensure that equity gaps, leaky pipelines, and professional engagement of early-career scientists and students are invigorated. As the program’s first activity, this session will provide an interactive workshop to “hack your career.” An introduction to the program’s future activities, its leadership, and brief overview of Cosmic Pathfinders university chapters will be given. Open to all who are interested!

Chair: Ronald Gamble
Co-Chairs: Jordan Forman, Isiah Holt, Gokul Srinivasaragavan, Amethyst Barnes

Tuesday, 9 January 2024

Gamma Ray SIG Session

Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, Room: 219

Time	Topic	Speakers	Presentation
10:00am–10:05am	GR SIG Intro to FIG SAG – Broad Overview of PhysCOS: Structure & Purpose	Manel Errando	[PDF]
10:05am–10:20am	FIG SAG Overview	Michelle Hui	[PDF]
10:20am–10:35am	Longer Historical Context of Gamma-ray Reports	Regina Caputo	[PDF]
10:35am–10:50am	International Context	Enrico Bozzo (virtual)	[PDF]
10:50am–11:05am	Recent Discussions in Gamma-ray Planning	Tiffany Lewis	[PDF]
11:05am–11:30am	Community Discussion on Report	Chris Fryer	[PDF]

Gravitational Wave SIG Session

Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, Room: 219

Time	Topic	Speakers	Presentation
2:00pm – 2:10pm	Welcome and Overview	Chiara Mingarelli GW SIG co-chair	[PDF]
2:10pm – 2:35pm	Links Between LIGO and LISA Science	Neil Cornish	[PDF]
2:35pm – 3:00pm	Signatures of Circumbinary Disk Physics in Massive Black Hole Binaries	Magda Siwek	[PDF]
3:00pm – 3:30pm	Astrophysics with the NANOGrav 15 Year Data	Joe Simon	[PDF]

Wednesday, 10 January 2024

Habitable Worlds Observatory Splinter Meeting

Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, Room: R08 / R09
12:45pm – 3:30pm CT

Interested in Getting Involved in the Habitable Worlds Observatory? Join our splinter meeting at the Jan AAS!

NASA is now preparing for the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO), a future large UV/optical/IR space telescope that will conduct a wide range of transformative astrophysics, from extragalactic UV science to direct observations of Earth-like planets. Two teams (START & TAG) have recently been formed to study this mission and are looking for community-wide involvement.

Join us at the HWO splinter meeting on Wednesday, January 10 from 12:45 – 3:30 PM CT to learn how you can get involved. You can join in-person in R08 / R09 at the convention center in New Orleans or online via Zoom.

We will describe the goals & activities of the study teams, discuss pathways for community participation via Working Groups, and hear about relevant scientific and technological progress. The full splinter agenda and Zoom connection info may be found inside this google sheet.

For more details about HWO and to view the official site.

Time	Presentation	Presenters
12:45pm - 12:50pm	Getting Settled
12:50pm - 1:00pm	Welcome and HQ Update	Megan Ansdell (NASA HQ)
1:00pm - 1:10pm	The Story of Life in the Universe	John O'Meara (Keck)
1:10pm - 1:15pm	Q&A
1:15pm - 1:45pm	Introduction to the HWO Working Groups	Courtney Dressing (UC Berkeley) and John Ziemer (JPL)
1:45pm - 1:55pm	Q&A
1:15pm - 2:15pm	Break
2:15pm - 2:17pm	ROSES Precursor Science Program Lightning Talks	Introduction by Megan Ansdell (NASA HQ)
2:17pm - 2:19pm	1. A Pathway to Planet Properties	Caleb Harada (UC Berkeley)
2:19pm - 2:21pm	2. Defining Science Requirements for Galaxy Formation and Evolution Across the UV and X-ray Wavebands with Synthetic Observations	John ZuHone (CfA)
2:21pm - 2:23pm	3. Obtaining Better Constraints on Eta-Earth By Reprocessing Kepler Data to Generate a More Complete and Reliable Exoplanet Catalog	Steve Bryson (NASA Ames)
2:23pm - 2:25pm	4. Securing Revolutionary Exozodi Research with VLTI/NOTT	Bill Danchi (NASA Goddard)
2:25pm - 2:27pm	5. Quantifying Spectroscopic Performance Requirements for Detecting Biosignatures with a Habitable Worlds Observatory	Vincent Kofman (American University)
2:27pm - 2:29pm	6. Stellar X-ray and Ultraviolet Characterization of the Habitable Worlds Observatory Habitable Planet Target Sample	David Wilson (U of Colorado - Boulder)
2:29pm - 2:31pm	7. Open Source Tools for Mapping Exoplanet Science Goals to Architecture Properties of the IR/O/UV Great Observatory	Armen Tokadjian (JPL)
2:31pm - 2:41pm	Q&A
2:41pm - 3:05pm	HWO Technology: Roadmap Teams & Industry Studies	Lee Feinberg (NASA GSFC), Nick Siegler (JPL), Alison Nordt (Northrop Grumman), & Tyler McCracken (Ball Aerospace)
3:05pm - 3:15pm	Q&A
3:15pm - 3:30pm	Closing Remarks	Joshua Pepper (NASA HQ)

Monday, 8 January through Wednesday, 10 January 2024

Five Minute Formulation Activity

NASA Booth, Exhibit Hall
9:00am – 6:30pm CT

This January at the AAS Meeting in New Orleans, we debut a new activity in the NASA Booth: Five Minute Formulation.

The primary goal is to make it easier for community members with ideas for space mission or instrument concepts to access experts at NASA Centers, especially for people whose institutions may not have abundant technical expertise. Another goal is to familiarize early-career researchers with NASA flight project formulation and nurture new principal investigators.

Come to our table at the NASA Booth in the Exhibit Hall to talk to our experts. We don’t expect that a concept will actually be formulated in 5 minutes. Rather, we hope to initiate conversations and point people in the right direction, whether it’s a contact at NASA or an existing training course. Feedback on previous experiences with NASA mission development will also be welcome!

Hope to see you!
Aki Roberge (GSFC) & Rhonda Morgan (JPL), Co-Organizers

NASA Press Releases at the AAS

• NASA/JAXA XRISM Mission Reveals Its First Look at X-ray Cosmos

• NASA’s Fermi Detects Surprise Gamma-Ray Feature Beyond Our Galaxy

• NASA Scientists Discover a Novel Galactic ‘Fossil’

PhysCOS Related Activities

Saturday, 6 January 2024

Time	Event	Location
8:30am – 5:00pm	Workshop: Multimessenger astronomers, unite! A practical dress rehearsal for LISA discovering a massive black hole merger — Day 1	Convention Center Room 216

Sunday, 7 January 2024

Time	Event	Location
8:30am – 5:00pm	Workshop: Multimessenger astronomers, unite! A practical dress rehearsal for LISA discovering a massive black hole merger – Day 2	Convention Center Room 216

Monday, 8 January 2024

Time	Event	Location
8:20am – 9:10am	Plenary: 102 – Fred Kavli Plenary Lecture: NANOGrav: The Dawn of Gravitational-wave Astronomy at Light-year Wavelengths, Stephen Taylor (Vanderbilt University)	Convention Center Great Hall A
10:00am – 11:30am	Special Session: 117 – HEAD I – Status of the X-ray Imaging Spectrometry Mission	Convention Center Room 212
11:00am – 11:30am	Exhibitor Theater: NASA Balloon Program Overview	Convention Center Hall B-1 / B-2
1:00pm – 2:30pm	Splinter: Cosmic Pathfinders Program	Convention Center Room 219
2:00pm – 3:30pm	Special Session: 141 – The Line Emission Mapper: A NASA X-ray Probe Mission Concept	Convention Center Room 209
2:00pm – 3:30pm	Special Session: 148 – Lessons Learned from the Implementation of Inclusion Plan Pilots at NASA	Convention Center Room 220

Tuesday, 9 January 2024

Time	Event	Location
10:00am – 11:30am	Special Session: 214 – HEAD II - High-Energy observations of Stellar-mass Compact Objects: A Tribute to Tomaso Belloni	Convention Center Room 212
10:00am – 11:30am	Special Session: 221 – Chandra at 25	Convention Center Room 222
11:40am – 12:30pm	Plenary: 233 – HEAD Bruno Rossi Prize Lecture: Pulsar Magnetosphere: The Incredible Machine, Anatoly Spitkovsky (Princeton University)	Convention Center Great Hall A
2:00pm – 3:30pm	Special Session: 220 – NANOGrav: The Dawn of Galaxy-scale Gravitational-wave Astronomy	Convention Center Room 226
4:00pm – 4:30pm	Exhibitor Theater: Chandra at Twenty-five: NASA's Flagship X-ray Observatory	Convention Center Hall B-1 /B-2
4:40pm – 5:30pm	Plenary: 257 – Plenary Lecture: The Precision Frontier of Dark Matter Constraints from Direct Acceleration Measurements, Sukanya Chakrabarti (University of Alabama, Huntsville)	Convention Center Great Hall A
7:30pm – 8:00pm	Town Hall: 265 – HEAD Social and Business Meeting	Convention Center Room 225

Wednesday, 10 January 2024

Time	Event	Location
2:00pm – 3:30pm	Special Session: 339 – Direct Imaging of Black Holes: Recent Results and Future Prospects	Convention Center Room 212
3:40pm – 4:30pm	Plenary: 357 – Plenary Lecture: Investigating the Early Universe, Jamie Bock (California Institute of Technology)	Convention Center Great Hall A
4:40pm – 5:30pm	Plenary: 358 – Newton Lacey Pierce Prize Lecture: Characterizing the Properties of Accreting Neutron Stars through X-ray Observations, Renee Ludlam (Wayne State University)	Convention Center Great Hall A