As we come to the end of the 221st annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society, it is time to reflect upon the diverse science presented at the meeting.
And what a lot of science it was.
Fortunately, there were also a lot of people to make sense of it and press releases picked out for us to highlight that thought to be most likely to be of public interest.
Which is a good thing, partly because I was kept overly busy talking to prospie grads and assorted post-graduate job candidates.
I think I even got a chance to chat with some old friends, just to catch up.
Emily Lakdawala from the Planetary Society has a good blog summary of exoplanet developments
Kepler "Periodic Table of Exoplanets"
Peter Edmonds also has a blog summary of the general highlights of the press releases
NuSTAR published some early results
A DAZ was discovered in the Hyades - that is a hot white dwarf showing metal absorption lines, for the n00bs. These are interesting because most everybody is now convinced the metals come from asteroid or comet impacts on the white dwarf, and, that to get an asteroid to hit a white dwarf you need a planet to nudge it.
Fermi caught an off center AGN γ-ray flare
Chandra caught Vela in translation (nice movie)
Apparently 2009ip finally popped for real - but does that mean η Cha is ever going to follow suit?
Gemini focused on Orion
Arrows of Orion
That's all I got time for, last chance to schmooze.