News Archive

2022

4 April 2022
Update on Open Access for AAS Journals

As of 1 January 2022, all of the journals of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) are fully open access (OA). This means that past, present, and future articles published in AAS journals are all immediately open for anyone to freely read. Impact on the Journals The transition to the…

22 March 2022
Response to NASA RFI: Implementation and Changes to Science Policy Document (SPD)-41

AAS Publishing staff and editors and the AAS Publications Committee have contributed a response to NASA’s recent Request for Information on their SPD-41 policy on open data and open science. Read AAS’s full response here.

2 March 2022
A Word on the AAS Journals Finances

AAS Executive Officer Kevin Marvel provides a short explanation about the financial situation for our journals.

22 February 2022
Judith Pipher, 1940-2022

With great regret we note the passing of Judith Pipher on Monday, February 21st.  She was a pioneer in infrared astronomy and longtime editor for The Astrophysical Journal.  She was a voice of grace, patience and wisdom and we will miss her.  It is simply not possible to do justice…

15 February 2022
WorldWide Telescope Releases 2022 Version

Thousands of new astronomical images have been highlighted in latest release of AAS WorldWide Telescope. Read about what else is new in WWT 2022!

9 February 2022
New Tool Launches for Astronomy Software Users

AAS and partnering organizations Zenodo and the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) have launched the Asclepias portal and broker, resources that connect software tools with scientific results to make research progress in astronomy faster, more open, and more reproducible.

2021

31 August 2021
Author Locations Worldwide

AAS journals publish research from around the globe. See where our authors are located.

26 August 2021
AAS Journals YouTube Series

The Lead Editor for our High Energy Phenomena and Fundamental Physics Corridor, Dr. Frank Timmes, also creates video content relating to AAS Journal publishing and hosted on the AAS YouTube channel. Some of the specific series related to our peer reviewed Journals are: Author series Publishing series Science Editor series…

24 August 2021
AAS Journals Are Going Fully Open Access

Big news: all AAS journals will be transitioning to fully open access on 1 January, 2022.

24 July 2021
AAS Name-Change Policy

The AAS recently adopted a new name-change policy for its research journals. The policy covers changes to names, pronouns, author photographs, and contact details.

11 June 2021
AAS Publishes White Papers for Planetary Sciences Decadal Survey

A special issue of the Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society (BAAS) features 522 white papers offering input from the scientific community to inform the Planetary Science and Astrobiology Decadal Survey 2023-2032. This study, conducted by the National Academies for NASA and the National Science Foundation (NSF), is assessing key scientific questions in planetary science…

7 June 2021
Ethics and Authorship in the AAS Journals

AAS President’s Message I’d like to thank the astronomical community for its ongoing commitment to upholding ethical standards for research and conduct. In light of recent inquiries regarding the permanent denial of authorship privileges in AAS-sponsored journals for those found in violation of the Code of Ethics (the Code) or the Anti-Harassment Policy,…

2 June 2021
Unified Astronomy Thesaurus (UAT) News

The Unified Astronomy Thesaurus (UAT) is a structured, controlled vocabulary of astronomical concepts and their inter-relationships. It serves the astronomy community as the standard for classifying data and publications in a time when it’s increasingly challenging to explore and understand an ever-expanding body of knowledge. Adoption of the UAT by…

4 May 2021
Susanna Kohler Promoted to Communications Manager & Press Officer

PRESS RELEASE ** Contact details appear below. ** The American Astronomical Society (AAS) is making some staff changes to strengthen its internal and external communications efforts in the wake of longtime AAS Press Officer Rick Fienberg’s imminent retirement. Chief among them, Susanna Kohler, founding Editor of AAS Nova, will be promoted to…

12 April 2021
Invitation: US Data Sharing and Reuse Stakeholder Survey

Sarah M Nusser Iowa State University At a time when increasing emphasis is being placed on the sharing and reuse of research data, we are interested in more fully understanding views, experiences, and needs in producing, sharing, and using publicly accessible research data. We invite you to take this survey…

2 February 2021
A New Year for the AAS-IOP eBooks Collection

Welcome to our first update of 2021. I hope this finds you well. 2020 was a year of change and difficulty for many, but I would like to reflect on some of the great ebooks that we have published and that I hope will help you with your research and…

2020

8 July 2020
Another Strong Showing for AAS Journal Metrics

Here’s some good news from AAS Publishing: Our peer-reviewed journals remain among the highest-ranked publications in the astronomical sciences according to several key metrics. The impact factor of the Astronomical Journal (AJ) rose 6.2% from 5.497 in 2018 to 5.838 in 2019, and that of the Astrophysical Journal (ApJ) rose 3.0% from 5.580 to 5.745.…

5 May 2020
AAS WorldWide Telescope Launches New Website

We’re proud to launch a new website for the AAS WorldWide Telescope (WWT) project! You can find it at https://worldwidetelescope.org/home/. While this new website offers a refreshed look and polished information about what WWT is and why you might want to use it, that’s just the tip of the iceberg — there…

4 May 2020
Research Notes Get a Little More Space

The Society’s venue for short communications, Research Notes of the AAS (RNAAS), is giving its authors a little more room from the beginning of May. The format for these brief notes, which can be used to report works in progress, introduce ideas, offer commentaries, or share negative results, now allows an abstract…

8 April 2020
AAS Journal Editors Meet via Zoom

Each year the AAS journal editors and supporting staff members meet to discuss the status of the journals, lessons learned throughout the year managing the peer review and journals production processes, and to strategize for the future. This year was no exception. Given the need to avoid physical gatherings because of the coronavirus pandemic, the…

27 March 2020
AAS Publishing Introduces Video Chats with Journal Authors

Last year AAS Publishing introduced a collection of videos produced by AAS Journals Lead Editor Frank Timmes and posted on the AAS YouTube channel. Frank has been busy: He launched his series with eight videos and has now posted more than six dozen! These cover a wide variety of topics, including advice for…

23 March 2020
Planetary Science Journal Publishes Its First Articles

The first articles to be published in the Planetary Science Journal (PSJ) are now online! Launched late last year by the AAS and our Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS), PSJ is an open-access journal devoted to recent developments, discoveries, and theories relevant to the investigation of both our solar system and other planetary systems. PSJ publishes…

16 March 2020
American Astronomical Society public comment on OSTP RFC “Desirable Characteristics of Repositories”

The American Astronomical Society chose to respond to the Request for Public Comment on “Draft Desirable Characteristics of Repositories for Managing and Sharing Data Resulting From Federally Funded Research” (Document 2020–00689; Posted 2020-01-17) from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. The response was written by the Data…

13 March 2020
Access to AAS Journals While Working Outside Your Institution

The AAS and Institute of Physics Publishing (IOPP) are working to ensure continuous access to the AAS journals for those who are now working away from their institution’s network in response to the coronavirus outbreak. Institutional users have access to AAS content from any remote location through VPN, Shibboleth, and/or…

2019

14 November 2019
Faith Vilas Named Editor of The Planetary Science Journal

Faith Vilas (Planetary Science Institute) will serve as Editor of the Planetary Science Journal. Courtesy Bonnie and Gabe Two Creative Birds. This post is based on an AAS press release. Faith Vilas, Senior Scientist at the Planetary Science Institute, has accepted appointment as Editor of the Planetary…

23 September 2019
AAS Journals Unveil New Tool for Visualizing Time-Series Data

This post is based on a post on the main aas.org website. The AAS journals have long supported the inclusion of animated and even interactive figures. Now, to make producing such graphics easier than ever, we are pleased to announce the aas-timeseries project, which works with the recently launched astropy.timeseries module. As their names…

16 August 2019
AAS, DPS Launch Gold Open Access Planetary Science Journal

This post is based on an AAS press release and a post on the main aas.org website. Research articles reporting significant developments, discoveries, and theories about planets, moons, small bodies, and the interactions among them will soon have a new showcase: The Planetary Science Journal (PSJ). This online publication is…

8 August 2019
AASTeX version 6.3 now available

The AAS is pleased to released the latest version of the LaTeX class file AASTeX, version 6.3. You can read about the new features that were included in AASTeX 6.3 here. AASTeX v6.3 is available locally and on CTAN. The AAS Journals Template in Overleaf has been updated to the…

12 June 2019
Publishing Is Hard! A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Getting the Astro2020 Science White Papers into the Bulletin of the AAS

At the beginning of 2019, a wide cross-section of the astronomical community wrote a bevy of science white papers for the National Academies’ Astro2020 Decadal Survey on Astronomy and Astrophysics. To help support the community in this important undertaking, the AAS took on the job of organizing these white papers…

5 June 2019
The Current State of Astronomy Research, Summarized in 573 Papers

What are the big topics in astronomy research that we’ll be working to address in the next decade? No need to pull out a crystal ball … astronomers have a pretty good guess, and they’ve shared what they think in a series of white papers that are part of the 2020 Decadal…

8 May 2019
AAS Journals Started Using New Keywords on June 3rd

Starting Monday, June 3rd, the AAS journals started categorizing articles using concepts from the Unified Astronomy Thesaurus (UAT), replacing the venerable subject keywords system. Read on to learn what this change means for you! Why is this changing? The simplest answer to this question is that the current list of keywords…

17 April 2019
AAS Letter to arXiv Regarding RNAAS Submissions

Dear Dr. Verde, We are writing to you in your role as head of the Science Advisory Board for the arXiv https://arxiv.org/help/scientific_ad_board, in the hope that you will be able to assist us in resolving an issue that has troubled our author community. As you know, the AAS Journals instituted…

17 January 2019
Software citation suggestions

The AAS Journals encourage software citation in a few ways. We have an explicit software policy and added the LaTeX \software{} tag to emphasize code used. We also implemented a review process to try to fix problematic behaviors in submissions.  Two problematic behaviors are a) authors who make no (zilch,…

10 January 2019
Updates to Software Citation in NASA ADS and Zenodo

The AAS Asclepias Project, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, announces the release of updates to the NASA ADS bibliographic index and the Zenodo repository related to the citation of scientific software in the literature. The NASA ADS now extracts and indexes cited software repositories published with the DataCite…

2018

21 December 2018
AAS WorldWide Telescope at AAS 233

The AAS’ WorldWide Telescope team has been working hard this year to enable more researchers to use WWT in their work. We’re looking forward to sharing the fruits of our labors with you at the upcoming Seattle meeting! We’re especially excited because this year is WWT’s 10th birthday ­— the…

12 December 2018
AAS names a new Scientific Software Editor

We’re delighted to announce the appointment of Dr Steve Crawford as the second software editor for AAS Journals. Steve leads the group developing the calibration software for the Hubble Space Telescope and its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope at the Space Telescope Science Institute.  He is a maintainer on the Astropy Project and…

2017

16 October 2017
Scope of Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society

Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society (RNAAS, http://rnaas.aas.org) is a new publication in the AAS portfolio (ApJ, AJ, ApJ Supplements, ApJ Letters) through which authors can promptly and briefly share materials of interest with the astronomical community. The astronomical community has long faced a challenge in disseminating information that…

24 July 2017
Direct Submission of AAS Journal Articles from Overleaf FAQ

The American Astronomical Society has partnered with Overleaf to provide direct manuscript uploads for initial submissions to our peer review system for The Astronomical Journal, The Astrophysical Journal, The Astrophysical Journal Supplement, The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Research Notes of the AAS, and The Planetary Science Journal. In addition to sending the LaTeX…

19 April 2017
Animated Figures in AAS Journal Articles

The AAS Journals would like to bring to your attention a change in how we support animations in the online (HTML) version of your final articles. Movies are no longer supplemental material, but are now “animated figures” in the final article. Animated figures are presented in an embedded streaming window,…

22 March 2017
Now You Can Raise Zombie Astrophotos

Looking for something fun and rewarding to do in your spare time? A new citizen-science project has been added to the Zooniverse platform (home of the well-known Galaxy Zoo project and others): Astronomy Rewind. What is Astronomy Rewind? The Astronomy Rewind project is a collaboration between the American Astronomical Society,…

2016

18 November 2016
A Second Round of AASTeX Improvements (Version 6.1)

Earlier this year, the AAS released a new version of the LaTeX class file AASTeX, used to prepare manuscripts for submission to AAS journals. You can read about the new features that were included in AASTeX 6.0 here. The publishing team received very helpful feedback from authors in response to…

21 March 2016
Preparing Your Manuscript Just Got Easier (AASTeX v6.0)

Read on to find out about the exciting new things you can do with the AAS’s newest LaTeX class file, available for download now. Note that AASTeX Version 6.1 was released in October 2016.AAS publishing has maintained a consistent class file for LaTeX manuscript preparation…

25 February 2016
We’re changing

We are pleased to announce some exciting changes at AAS Publishing that were recommended by the AAS Journals Futures Task Force in 2014 and unanimously approved by the AAS Council in January 2015. Starting on Thursday, February 25, 2016, there will be a consolidated manuscript submission site for three…

4 January 2016
AAS Journals at the AAS 227 Meeting

There are lots of changes coming to the way we publish your research, so get a head start on the new system by attending one of our two events at the AAS 227 meeting in Kissimmie this week. We have prepared a detailed Author and Referee Workshop on Wednesday and…

1 January 2016
New Lead Editors for the AAS Journals

As a result of recommendations from the AAS Journals Futures Task Force, we are breaking new ground in the way that our journals serve their communities. The first step is focusing more on the individual research areas that we publish. That’s why we’ve appointed new Lead Editors to take on…

2015

12 January 2015
Changes Ahead for AAS Journals

The American Astronomical Society is unusual in owning its journals, and as a nonprofit organization the AAS seeks to maximize the value of these crucial components of our scientific communication system. Guided by our forward-thinking past and present Executive Officers and journal editors, the AAS journals — the Astronomical Journal,…

5 January 2015
Recommendations of the AAS Journals Future Task Force

For several decades, the AAS has been a leader in the publication of astronomical research. From being in the vanguard of electronic publication, to our early adoption of Green Open Access (consistent with the subsequent requirements of the government), to a number of new initiatives such as data behind the…

1969

31 December 1969
A Few Updates to AAS Journal Style

The Journals staff has been hard at work on a complete revamping of the AASTeX code. In tandem with this, the Publications Committee has identified a few key spots in AAS journal style where improvements could be made to better align with community standards and our core values.

31 December 1969
Welcome to Kerry Kroffe, AAS Director of Scholarly Publishing

The American Astronomical Society (AAS) is pleased to announce that Kerry Kroffe is serving as the Director of Scholarly Publishing for the organization as of 9 September, 2024, following the recent retirement of AAS Chief Publishing Officer Julie Steffen.

31 December 1969
The AAS Open Access Publishing Model: Open, Transparent, and Fair

As of 2022, all AAS journals are open access. What does our business model look like for the journals now, and why did we choose it?

31 December 1969
The AAS Publication Support Fund: Preserving Author Access to the AAS Journals

Ethan Vishniac outlines the AAS Publication Support Fund which provides financial support to authors for the publication of their journal articles.

31 December 1969
Response to NASA RFI: NASA Public Access Plan for Increasing Access to the Results of NASA-Supported Research

AAS Publishing staff and editors have contributed a response to NASA’s recent Request for Information on their Public Access Plan for Increasing Access to the Results of NASA-Supported Research. Read AAS’s full response here.

31 December 1969
On the Use of Chatbots in Writing Scientific Manuscripts

Ethan Vishniac discusses editorial guidelines for the use of chatbots in preparing manuscripts for submission to the journals of the AAS.

31 December 1969
AAS Journals Transition to Open Access

The AAS transitioned its entire journals portfolio to fully open access (OA) on 1 January 2022. Read more about this transition in the FAQs.

31 December 1969
A Word on the AAS Journals Finances

Kevin Marvel outlines the financial situation for the AAS journals.

31 December 1969
Response to NASA RFI

AAS Publishing staff and editors and the AAS Publications Committee have contributed a response to NASA’s recent Request for Information on their SPD-41 policy on open data and open science.

31 December 1969
AAS Journals Editor in Chief Ethan Vishniac elected to the 2022 class of AAAS Fellows

The AAAS has elected 505 scientists, engineers, and innovators to the 2022 class of AAAS Fellows,