Jan. 02, 2009

J.D. Harrington
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-5241
jharring{at}nasa.gov

Steve Maran
AAS Press Room, Long Beach, Calif.
562-628-8401 (starting Jan. 4)
steve.maran{at}aas.org


MEDIA ADVISORY: M09-001

NASA SCIENCE ON DISPLAY AT AMERICAN ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY MEETING

WASHINGTON - NASA researchers will present new findings on a wide
range of astrophysics topics during the 213th American Astronomical
Society (AAS) meeting. The meeting runs from Sunday, Jan. 4, through
Thursday, Jan. 8, at the Long Beach Convention & Entertainment
Center, 300 East Ocean Blvd., Long Beach, Calif.

News briefings held during the meeting will feature the latest
results
from NASA missions. In addition, NASA scientists and their colleagues
using NASA research capabilities will present noteworthy findings
during scientific sessions that are open to registered media
representatives. NASA also will hold two town hall meetings open at
all AAS attendees.

The AAS Press Office will be located in Room 202C of the Long Beach
Convention Center. Press room phone numbers are: 562-628-8401, 8402
and 8405. Press conferences will be held in Room 204. The press room
will open at 8 a.m. PST daily.

Monday, Jan. 5, beginning 9:20 a.m. PST (12:20 p.m. EST)
SESSION: NASA SCIENTISTS DETECT HYDROCARBON
IN COLD DUST BETWEEN STARS
NASA Ames' Jean Chiar and Alexander Tielens and their colleagues will
present the first clear detections of a feature associated with
polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from the Spitzer Space
Telescope Infrared Spectrometer in the cold space between stars. PAHs
are normally observed near an exciting source, such as stars, rather
than in the cold interstellar medium dust. The observations yield
crucial information on PAHs and carbon in cold interstellar dust.
(Session 412: Dust II, Exhibit Hall A)

Monday, Jan. 5, at 9:30 a.m. PST (12:30 p.m. EST)
PRESS BRIEFING: EXOPLANETS AND EXOPLANETARY SYSTEMS
Results from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope will be presented,
including new observations of shredded asteroids around dead stars
and evidence for rapidly forming planets. Participants include
Michael Jura, University of California, Los Angeles, and Thayne
Currie, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Mass.
(Related Session: 333)
Monday, Jan. 5, at 10:45 a.m. PST (1:45 p.m. EST)

SESSION: NASA TO LAUNCH NEW WEB DATABASE FOR ASTROCHEMISTRY
NASA Ames' Lou Allamandola and Charles Bauschlicher and their
colleagues will unveil a new online database of the hundreds of
polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) spectra that will be made
publicly available in 2009. For more than 18 years, scientists at
NASA's Ames Research Center have worked to assemble the database that
now contains the spectra of approximately 600 theoretically computed
and 60 experimentally measured PAHs in different forms. This database
will enable astronomers to fully analyze the infrared emission that
comes from many astronomical objects. (Session 305: Dust I, Category
17, Room 104A)
Monday, Jan. 5, at 11 a.m. PST (2 p.m. EST)

PRESS BRIEFING: BROWN DWARFS
An upcoming NASA mission, the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, is
expected to find brown dwarfs, or "failed" stars, closer to Earth
than our nearest stars. Researchers will discuss the mission and
present current information from a multi-year survey of brown dwarfs,
exoplanets, and stars within about 33 light years of the sun.
Participants include Amanda Mainzer, NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.; and Todd Henry and Sergio Dieterich,
Georgia State University, Atlanta. (Related Sessions: 459, 407)
Monday, Jan. 5, at 12:30 p.m. PST (3:30 p.m. EST)

PRESS BRIEFING: MILKY WAY
Scientists will make the first public presentation of a new mosaic
image of the center of the Milky Way galaxy from the Hubble Space
Telescope. Participants include Q. Daniel Wang, University of
Massachusetts, Amherst, and Elizabeth Humphreys and Mark Reid,
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Mass.
Monday, Jan. 5, at 12:45 p.m. PST (3:45 p.m. EST)

TOWN HALL: NASA ASTROPHYSICS
Senior representatives from NASA's Science Mission Directorate and
Astrophysics Division will discuss NASA's science program and
outlook. Topics will include the status of the research program,
highlights of operating missions, the upcoming decadal survey,
progress of missions in development, and anticipated opportunities
for both non-flight basic research awards (grants) and flight mission
investigations. (General Session Hall B, Session: 206)

Monday, Jan. 5, at 7:15 p.m. PST (10:15 p.m. EST)
TOWN HALL: JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE
The James Webb Space Telescope team passed several major milestones
in
2008 toward an expected launch in 2013. Reporters will hear from
astronomers whose science is enabled by Webb, the senior engineers
who will describe the most up-to-date design features, and project
leaders who will discuss the status of the program. A reception
precedes the Town Hall. (Regency Ballroom ABC, 4th Floor, Hyatt
Regency Long Beach)

Tuesday, Jan. 6, at 9 a.m. PST (noon EST)
PRESS BRIEFING: CASSIOPEIA A - NEWS FROM CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY
A new movie of data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory shows
changes in time never seen before in a supernova remnant. An
unprecedented and dramatic three-dimensional visualization of the
same famous remnant -- based on data from Chandra, Spitzer, and
ground-based telescopes -- will be displayed. Participants include
Daniel Patnaude, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge,
Mass.; Tracey Delaney, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Cambridge, Mass.; and Alyssa Goodman, Harvard University, Cambridge,
Mass. (Related Sessions: 321.07, 359.01)

Tuesday, Jan. 6, at 11:30 a.m. PST (2:30 p.m. EST)
PRESS BRIEFING: BRIGHT FLASHES IN THE UNIVERSE
This briefing presents a first-ever observation from a star-forming
region in a distant young galaxy made possible by NASA's Swift
gamma-ray observatory and the Keck I Telescope, as well as the
discovery of an unusual transient optical source by the Hubble Space
Telescope. Participants include Jason X. Prochaska, University of
California, Santa Cruz; Yaron Sheffer of the University of Toledo,
Ohio; and Kyle H. Barbary, University of California, Santa Barbara.

Tuesday, Jan. 6, at 1 p.m. PST (4 p.m. EST)
PRESS BRIEFING: NEWS FROM FERMI AND SWIFT
This briefing highlights new results from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray
Space
Telescope and Swift gamma-ray burst mission on pulsars and quasars,
respectively. Participants include Roger Romani, Stanford University,
Stanford, Calif.; and Alice Harding and Richard Mushotzky from NASA's
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

Wednesday, Jan. 7, 11 a.m. PST (2 p.m. EST)
PRESS BRIEFING: REMARKABLE DISCOVERY
All details are under wraps about this unexpected find in images from
one of the most powerful telescopes. Raghvendra Sahai, principal
research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena,
Calif. (Related Session 485)

Wednesday, Jan. 7, at 12:30 p.m. PST (3:30 p.m. EST)
PRESS BRIEFING: EXTRAGALACTIC BACKGROUND
New findings from a NASA balloon mission. Participants include
Michael
Seiffert, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and
Alan Kogut, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

For information about NASA and agency programs, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov


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