Summary of the January 2023 American Astronomical Society Meeting

Dr. Regina Jorgenson • January 25, 2023

By: Dr. Regina Jorgenson, MMA Director of Astronomy


Earlier this month, MMA Astronomy interns, post-baccalaureate research fellows, Director of Astronomy, Dr. Regina Jorgenson, Executive Director, Joanna Roche, and Director of Science and Programming, Jónelle Gurley, traveled to Seattle, WA for the ‘Superbowl’ of the astronomy world, the American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting. 


The AAS meeting is the largest annual gathering of professional astronomers, this year seeing over 3,000 astronomers come together to share news of their latest and greatest research results. Exciting new results were presented in all fields of astronomy, but the highlight of this meeting were the many amazing new results coming from NASA’s new Great Observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), launched in December 2021. In addition to detecting and attempting to measure the atmosphere of the first Earth-like exoplanet, JWST is peering back into the early Universe farther than we’ve ever seen, giving us a glimpse at early star and galaxy formation. For a more detailed summary of the JWST results, listen to Dr. Jorgenson’s Looking Skyward interview here.


All six of the MMA’s summer 2022 National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates (NSF-REU) interns attended the meeting and presented posters describing their summer research. Presentation results spanned a broad range, from understanding how star spots can affect the overall brightness of a star, to how a nova explosion expands into its surroundings, to a new method for finding supermassive black holes getting kicked out of their galaxies. Other work attempted to use X-rays to understand the properties of interstellar dust, image some of the first galaxies forming in the early Universe, and use cosmological simulations to help us understand the largest structures in the universe, galaxy clusters. During their poster presentations, the NSF-REU interns spoke with top researchers in the field, allowing them to make scientific connections and act as ambassadors for all of the amazing research being done at the MMA. 


The annual MMA Alumni and Friends Breakfast was a highlight of the week, bringing together approximately 30 REU alumni, mentors, and friends. Connections were forged and stories were shared of long-ago summers spent studying the universe under the dark skies of Nantucket Island. 


MMA REU interns in attendance include: 

Kate Shavelle, MMA Astronomy intern and Columbia University student

Anavi Uppal, MMA Astronomy intern and Yale University student

Devisree Tallapaneni, MMA Astronomy intern and Cornell student

Will Jarvis, MMA Astronomy intern University of Wisconsin - Madison student

Chris Chang, MMA Astronomy intern and Willamette University student

Danya Alboslani, MMA Astronomy intern and University of Connecticut student

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Maria Mitchell In Her Own Words

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • May 19, 2025
May 27. {1857} There is this great difference between Niagara and other wonders of the world, that is you get no idea from descriptions or even from paintings. Of the Mammoth Cave you have a conception from what you are told, of the Natural Bridge you get really a truthful impression from a picture. But Cave and Bridge are in still life, Niagara is all activity and change. No picture gives you the varying form of the water of the change of color; no description conveys to your mind the ceaseless roar. So too the ocean must be unrepresentable to those who have not looked upon it. Maria Mitchell would tour the Mammoth Cave and the Natural Bridge during her trip to the southern United States as Prudence Swift’s chaperone – I have written of these travels and Prudence before. Niagara Falls is a place she likely saw on her way to visit her younger sister Phebe Mitchell Kendall, who once lived with her husband in Pennsylvania. I was a bit surprised that she feels the way she does about the Cave and Bridge being well-represented by images but I do kind of se her point. But Niagara, the ocean, any moving body of water – she is right. You don’t fully comprehend it until you hear it, touch and taste it, see its colors, and feel it splash, sprinkle, or mist across your face. Niagara certainly mists across your face – sort of like a breezy day at the beach and the salt mist that slowly builds across your face and coats the beach grass so that it shimmers in the sunlight. JNLF

Lily of the Valley

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • May 12, 2025
I have been watching it. Waiting. Today, I was rewarded with the scent as they have now started to open. From late fall, all through the winter and early spring, there is a very large patch of dirt with traces of roots and purple-like portions of some sort of plant. Then, they slowly start to send their shoots forth – up from that dusty pile of dirt come little greenish pips that become the leaves. Then, you start to see the stems tightened against the leaves and then lovely chartreuse buds are visible that then turn to white and slowly open from top to bottom. As soon as they star to open, I wait. Knowing that one morning I will walk by soon and then I will get a delicious waft of Lily of the Valley. I have written about this patch at the Mitchell House before. I have always been fascinated by the fact that these grow in full sun – they have no shade whatsoever. And this patch is old. I’m not sure how old – I do not think late nineteenth century but possibly – or maybe very early twentieth century. We have one or two images in the collection from the early 1900s but one does not show the ground, and the other not so much either. I also think this is one of the earliest flowering patches of Lily of the Valley on island – let me know if you’ve seen others this early. And in FULL sun to boot! But in any case, today was the day – May 5, 2025 – that I got the first waft. Saturday when I was here, they were not ready yet. But now, they are! And when I smell it, I know why it was my mother-in-law’s favorite flower. JNLF

Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association Welcomes Richard Sotell, CFP as Featured Guest for May Science Speaker Series

May 6, 2025
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