Commentary from the AAS Journals

Commentary from the AAS Journals

Commentary from the AAS Journals

I provide a synopsis of many of the scientific advances made by Gaia, through to the end of 2023, by means of a hyperlinked index to weekly essays that I been writing since the start of 2021.

This paper reviews roughly 60 years of recommendations from US astronomy and astrophysics decadal reports and their respective resource allocations, followed by a discussion of gender balance in the committees and a concluding analysis of other issues that came to light.

News reports claim that China is overtaking the United States and all other countries in scientific productivity and impact. A straightforward analysis in astronomy reveals that the United States hosts the largest number of authors that lead high-impact papers.

On September 1, the AAS announced that in 2022 its main astronomy journals will transition to an open access publication model. Why is this a big deal? Peter K. G. Williams explains how the AAS’s move relates to some of the big trends at play in the scholarly publishing industry.

The ADS team has written a detailed tutorial on some of the ADS’ more powerful commands and features. Dozens of examples are provided to kick your ADS skills up a notch.

Several key events and discoveries related to meteoritics, astronomy, geo- and cosmochemistry, and nuclear sciences can be commemorated this year, including the anniversaries of the discoveries of eleven chemical elements, and the advancements of our knowledge of the elemental an

By counting the numbers of citations received after publication, we can determine how long astronomical papers are remembered.

During my 29 years (1971-1999) as Editor-in-Chief of The Astrophysical Journal, I learned or developed various principles and policies for editing that seem scientifically sound, fair, and effective.