The Spitzer Space Telescope, launched in 2003 to complete NASA's Great Observatories program, has revolutionized our understanding of the Universe from our own Solar System to the most distant galaxies. Its sensitive infrared instruments and unique Earth-trailing Solar orbit have permitted breakthrough studies of cold, dusty and distant objects, including the first detection of light from an exoplanet and measurements of the stellar mass and star formation history of the most distant galaxies. While on-orbit operations for Spitzer cease on 30 January 2020, Spitzer data will continue to be mined for decades to come, and continue to further our understanding of the Universe, near and far. This conference will highlight the major scientific accomplishments enabled by the Spitzer Space Telescope, with special focus on the Spitzer results that are shaping the future of astrophysics.

There will be a mixture of invited and contributed talks and ample room for posters. We expect to cap attendance at 150 participants. There will be a conference dinner at the Athenaeum on the Caltech campus on the evening of 12 February.

Science Organizing Committee: Michael Werner (co-chair, JPL), Tom Soifer (co-chair, Caltech), Brad Cenko (GSFC), Drake Deming (U Maryland) Mark Dickinson (NOAO), Courtney Dressing (UC Berkeley), Josh Emery (U Tennessee), Lynne Hillenbrand (Caltech), Lori Lubin (UC Davis), Stan Metchev U Western Ontario), Joan Najita (NOAO), Bill Reach (USRA), Kartik Sheth (NASA)

Local Organizing Committee: Sean Carey (chair), Mary Ellen Barba, Sebastiano Calchi-Novati, Rick Ebert, Andreas Faisst, Seppo Laine, Wannetta Lockhart, Patrick Lowrance, Roberta Paladini

You can sign up for our mailing list for more information and keep track of conference developments on social media using #spitzerlegacy2020.

Invited Speakers:

• Mark Brodwin (Univeristy of Missouri, Kansas City)
• Daniela Calzetti (University of Massachusetts)
• Vassilis Charmandaris (University of Crete)
• Christine Chen (Space Telescope Science Institute)
• Ian Crossfield (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
• Diana Dragomir (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
• Richard Ellis (University College, London)
• Catherine Espaillat (Boston University)
• Michaël Gillon (University of Liège, Belgium)
• Mansi Kasliwal (California Institute of Technology)
• Davy Kirkpatrick (IPAC/California Institute of Technology)
• Heather Knutson (California Institute of Technology)
• Casey Lisse (Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University)
• Matt Malkan (University of California Los Angeles)
• Mark Marley (NASA Ames Research Center)
• Alexandra Pope (University of Massachusetts)
• Kate Su (University of Arizona)
• Siyi Xu (Gemini Observatory)
• Jennifer Yee (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)

In little more than half a century, X-ray astronomy has established itself as a fundamental domain of observational astrophysics. X-rays probe the hot and energetic components of the Universe, encompassing, among others, the million degree coronae of stars, the remnants of supernovae, the ultra-dense matter in neutron stars, the immediate surroundings of black holes, the plasma filling galaxy clusters - the most massive objects in the Universe.

Successfully launched in July 2019, after more than a decade of development, the Russian-German Spectrum-RG (SRG) mission will contribute to the X-ray exploration of the Universe by performing eight all-sky surveys, each lasting half a year, with its two scientific instruments: eROSITA, the German-built telescope array operating between ~0.3-8 keV, and ART-XC, the Russian-built hard-X-ray focusing telescope array, operating between ~3-30 keV.

As in any other astrophysics domain, the SRG all-sky surveys will unlock large swathes of discovery space, provide large statistical samples to trace the cosmic evolution of various classes of objects, and explore sufficiently large volumes to serve as cosmological tools for the study the Universe as a whole. In particular, the high sensitivity, large field of view, and high survey efficiency of eROSITA is bound to revolutionize X-ray astronomy: within just the first year of operation it will discover about as many new celestial X-ray objects as have been discovered from 1962 until today.

The goal of the next international SRG conference (the third in a series, and the first after the SRG launch) is to discuss the state of the art in the different scientific areas addressed by the mission, present to the community the first results from eROSITA and ART-XC, and explore the synergies with surveys and observations at other wavelengths.

The meeting plans to cover the following topics:

• Galaxy clusters and cosmology
• Physical properties of clusters and groups of galaxies
• Large scale structure of the Universe
• Clusters as cosmological tools
• Active galactic nuclei
• Evolution and properties of the AGN population
• Quasars at high redshift
• AGN as tracers of large scale structure
• Galactic compact objects, stars and planets
• X-ray emission from planets and comets
• X-ray stellar populations of the Milky Way
• Cataclysmic variables and X-ray binaries
• Isolated neutron stars
• ULX and X-ray sources in nearby galaxies
• The Transient X-ray sky
• Tidal Disruption Events
• Gamma-ray bursts and afterglows
• Galactic X-ray transients
• Diffuse X-ray emission
• Cosmic X-ray background and its fluctuations
• Galactic Ridge X-ray Emission
• Hot ISM in the Milky Way, LMC and SMC
• Supernova remnants
• Synergy with multi-wavelength surveys

This symposium follows previous Fermi Symposia at Stanford, CA (February 2007), Washington, DC (November 2009), Rome, Italy (May 2011), Monterey, CA (November 2012), Nagoya, Japan (October 2014), Arlington, VA (November 2015), Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany (October 2017), and Baltimore, MD (October 2018).

The two Fermi instruments have been surveying the high-energy sky since August 2008. The Large Area Telescope (LAT) has discovered more than a thousand new sources and many new source classes, bringing the importance of gamma-ray astrophysics to an ever-broadening community. The LAT catalog includes supernova remnants, pulsar wind nebulae, pulsars, binary systems, novae, several classes of active galaxies, starburst galaxies, normal galaxies, and a large number of unidentified sources. Continuous monitoring of the high-energy gamma-ray sky has uncovered numerous outbursts from a wide range of transients. Fermi LAT's study of diffuse gamma-ray emission in our galaxy revealed giant bubbles shining in gamma rays. The direct measurement of a harder-than-expected cosmic-ray electron spectrum may imply the presence of nearby cosmic-ray accelerators. LAT data have provided stringent constraints on new phenomena such as supersymmetric dark-matter annihilations as well as tests of fundamental physics. The Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) continues to be a prolific detector of gamma-ray transients: magnetars, solar flares, terrestrial gamma-ray flashes and gamma-ray bursts at keV to MeV energies, complementing the higher energy LAT observations of those sources in addition to providing valuable science return in their own right.

All gamma-ray data are made immediately available at the Fermi Science Support Center. These publicly available data and Fermi analysis tools have enabled a large number of important studies. We especially encourage guest investigators worldwide to participate in this symposium to share results and to learn about upcoming opportunities.

This meeting will focus on the new scientific investigations and results enabled by Fermi, the mission and instrument characteristics, future opportunities, and coordinated observations and analyses.

For more information please visit the symposium website.

Growing Black Holes: Accretion and mergers, 19-24 April 2020, is the seventh in a series of astrophysical conferences held in Kathmandu (Nepal). The meeting will focus on various aspects on accretion onto black holes, mergers of compact objects forming black holes, and jets formed in those systems. Emission of those systems/events in electromagnetic radiation, gravitational waves and neutrinos will be also addressed.

This conference will be in memory of Sergio Colafrancesco. Sergio has been among the conference organizers for most of the previous conference editions. He was an internationally recognized scientist, expert in cosmology and astrophysics and a Nepal lover.

Main Topics:

• Black holes of all masses
• Compact object mergers at all scales (stellar mass & supermassive), EM and GW signatures
• Physics of accretion, disc winds and jets – Galactic systems, IMBHs, and AGN
• Stellar tidal disruption events (TDEs)
• Large-scale feedback: jets and outflows
• Galaxy – BH scaling relations
• Collapsars: black hole formation and GRBs
• Multimessenger astrophysics
• Mission Highlights and upcoming missions

The conference will be held at the five star Hotel Radisson in Kathmandu, Nepal. The hotel is close to the Royal Palace and within walking distance to the center of the city.

Conference Fee:

The conference fee will be 350 EUR (including lunches, coffee breaks, welcome reception and conference banquet, use of the hotel conference facilities and a sightseeing) if registered before the deadline of 2020.01.01. After that, late registration will only be possible, if any space is left. The fee then is 400 EUR. We strongly encourage early registration and flight booking. A reduced fee of 250 EUR is foreseen for Indian/SAARC scientists and a further reduced fee of 200 EUR is foreseen for students (PhD, master degrees).

Pre-conference school for local students:

A two-day school for local students (April 16-17), which introduces the conference topics, is planned.

Trekkings/Excursions:

There is the option of booking a few post-conference trips, including trekking in Nepal with Everest/Himalaya views, and a one-week excursion to Bhutan. These are not part of the conference, but are organized by external trekking agencies. Strict booking deadlines apply. More information is available here

Scientific Organizing Committee:

G. Beck (South Africa), K. Belczynski (Poland), M. Branchesi (Italy), M. Colpi (Italy), M. Elvis (US), A. Gopakumar (India), K. Holley-Bockelmann (US), A. Ingram (UK), S. Komossa (chair; Germany), J.-P. Lasota (France), R. Morganti (Netherlands), C. Mundell (UK), E. Palazzi (Italy), E. Pian (Italy), L. Piro (Italy), L. Rezzolla (Germany), G. Sivakoff (Canada), A. Tchekhovskoy (US), M. Trenti (Australia), D.R. Upadhyay (Tribhuvan Univ., Nepal), A. Veledina (Finland), A. Zdziarski (Poland), S.-N. Zhang (China) Local Organizing Committee S. Komossa (Bonn, Germany), E. Palazzi (INAF/OAS-Bologna, Italy), M. Trenti (Melbourne Univ., Australia), A. Zdziarski (chair, NCAC, Poland)

Contact nepal2020[AT]iasfbo[DOT]inaf[DOT]it

Since its launch in November 2004, the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory has provided a unique suite of multi-wavelength instruments to both discover and follow-up a wide range of transients and variable sources. To celebrate the 15th anniversary of the Swift launch, we are organizing a conference to explore the future landscape of panchromatic transient studies. The next decade promises to be rife with discoveries, with new and upgraded facilities spanning the entire electromagnetic spectrum (e.g., SVOM, eROSITA, LSST, SKA) and beyond (LIGO/Virgo, IceCube). This workshop will focus on the critical role enabled by multi-wavelength studies in this period. The meeting will be organized around a series of key open questions, including:

• What powers newly discovered stellar explosions such as superluminous supernovae and fast luminous/blue optical transients?
• Are binary neutron star mergers the (sole) progenitors of short gamma-ray bursts?
• From where does the emission arise in tidal disruption events, and how can we use these sources to measure black hole properties (mass, spin)?
• What are the cosmic sources of high-energy neutrinos?
• How do neutron stars achieve super-Eddington luminosities, and why are ULXs sometimes transient?
• What powers the non-thermal emission in classical novae, and are they potential progenitors of type Ia supernovae?
• What determines whether a massive star will explode as a long gamma-ray burst or a core-collapse supernova?

Brad Cenko (Chair/GSFC), Sergio Campana (INAF Brera), Suvi Gezari (Maryland), Stefanie Komossa (MPIfR), Andrew Levan (Radboud), Brian Metzger (Columbia), Jon Miller (Michigan), John Nousek (Penn State), Kim Page (Leicester), Daniel Perley (LJMU)

Local Organizing Committee:

John Nousek (Chair/Penn State), David Burrows (Penn State), Brad Cenko (GSFC), Julia Erdley (Penn State), Jamie Kennea (Penn State), Anna Vanalstine (Penn State)

For more information:

Brad Cenko (SOC Chair): brad.cenko[AT]nasa[DOT]gov

John Nousek (LOC Chair): nousek[AT]swift[DOT]psu[DOT]edu

The Transient High-Energy Sky and Early Universe Surveyor (THESEUS) is a space mission concept aiming at fully exploiting Gamma-Ray Bursts for investigating the early Universe and at providing a substantial advancement of multi-messenger and time-domain astrophysics, currently under Phase A study by the European Space Agency (ESA) as candidate M5 mission in view of a launch opportunity in 2032 (https://www.isdc.unige.ch/theseus).

During this dedicated scientific conference, the THESEUS science case will be presented through review talks that highlight the state-of-the-art knowledge on GRB science, early Universe studies, gravitational wave physics, and transient Universe phenomena. The development status of the instruments on-board THESEUS will be reported and discussed, together with the current assumptions for the mission profile. Contributed talks are expected to enrich the program and suggest further exploitations of the THESEUS instrumentation in many other fields of the modern Astronomy, Astrophysics, Cosmology, and fundamental physics. Through this conference, we aim at strengthening the involvement of the community in the project and boost even more the synergies being developed between THESEUS and other facilities operational in the 2030s in the multi-wavelength and multi-messenger domains. The possible use of THESEUS as a general purpose guest observer facility will also be discussed.

The event is promoted by the THESEUS consortium and the Science Study Team, appointed by ESA in 2018, plus the leading scientific Spanish representatives of the THESEUS collaboration.

Science Organizing Committee:

L. Amati (INAF-IASF Bologna, IT; CHAIR); D. Gotz (CEA Saclay, FR; co-chair); P. O'Brien (Univ. Leicester, UK; co-chair); S. Basa (LAM Marseille, FR); M. D. Caballero-Garcia (IAA-CSIC, Spain); A. Castro-Tirado (IAA Granada, ES); L. Christensen (University of Copenhagen, Denmark); M. Guainazzi (ESA/ESTEC); L. Hanlon (UCD, IE); S. Paltani (Univ. Geneva, CH); V. Reglero (Univ. Valencia, ES); A. Santangelo (Univ. Tubingen, DE); G. Stratta (INAF-OAS Bologna, IT); N. Tanvir (Univ. Leicester, UK).

Local Organizing Committee:

E. Bozzo (Univ. Geneva, CH); I. Carrasco (UMA); A. Castro-Tirado (IAA Granada, ES); E. Fernández-García (IAA-CSIC); Y.-D. Hu (IAA-CSIC); C. Pérez del Pulgar (UMA); A. Reina (UMA)

For more information, please visit the conference website or email to: theseus2020 [AT] unige [DOT] ch

Energetic and collimated beams of plasma launched from the centre of galaxies have fascinated the community for a century. In spite of the advancement in observational and theoretical modelling techniques, many aspects regarding the detailed physics of extra-galactic jets remain not fully understood. This conference aims to push forward our understanding of extra-galactic jets bringing together experts from theory and observations.

The main focus shall be on the theoretical side. One major aim of this conference is to demonstrate recent advances in the multi-scale numerical modeling of jets and to discuss strategies for how to better constrain simulations with multi-wavelength and high-resolution observational data. Another focus shall be the universality of jet properties and understand what we can learn from other jets sources such as non-relativistic jets or GRBs.

The conference addresses the astrophysics across all scales of the jets from :

• the launching scale that governs the jet energetics and matter content
• the propagation scale involving magnetic dissipation, particle acceleration and non-thermal radiation, jet stability and variability
• the termination scale that is essentially connected to IGM and ICM feedback and the FRI/FRII jet power

Present and future sensitive radio facilities, such as VLA, LOFAR, EHT, and SKA, together with those extending the coverage over a full multiwavelength range, will be crucial for unraveling the jet physics at all spatial scales. This conference should be a platform to discuss state-of-the-art astrophysical approaches which can successfully bridge between numerical simulations, theoretical models, and multi-wavelength/multi-messenger observations.

In particular we would appreciate contributions on the following topics:

• Jet launching : GR-MHD simulations, launching site
• Jet stability and variability
• Jet energetics : heating, dissipation
• Jet termination : AGN Feedback and ICM Heating
• Particle acceleration mechanisms
• Emission and polarization - observed and simulated
• Essential observational inputs for theory
• Universality of jet properties

For more information, please visit the workshop website.

The event is the ninth in a series of meetings gathering scientists working on astroparticle physics, cosmology, gravitation, nuclear physics, and related fields. As in previous years, the IWARA2020 meeting sessions will consist of invited and contributed talks, poster sessions, and will cover recent developments in the following topics:

• New phenomena and new states of matter in the Universe
• General relativity, gravitation, cosmology
• New directions for general relativity: past, present and future of general relativity
• FRW cosmologies
• Cosmic microwave background radiation
• First stars, hypernovae, and faint supernovae in the early Universe
• Quantum gravity and quantum cosmology
• Gravity and the unification of fundamental interactions
• Supersymmetry and Inflation
• String theory
• White dwarfs, neutron stars and pulsars
• Black hole physics and astrophysics
• Gamma-ray emission in the Universe
• High energy cosmic rays
• Gravitational waves
• Dark energy and dark matter
• Strange matter and strange stars
• Antimatter in the Universe
• High-energy cosmic neutrinos
• Blazars
• Quantum chromodynamics, nuclear and particle physics and new states of matter in the Universe. Heavy ion collisions and the formation of the quark-gluon plasma in heavy ion collisions and in the first instants of the Universe
• Strong magnetic fields in the Universe, strong magnetic fields in compact stars and in galaxies, ultra-strong magnetic fields in neutron star mergers, quark stars and magnetars, strong magnetic fields and the cosmic microwave background
• Laboratories, observatories, telescopes and other experimental and observational facilities that will define the future directions of astrophysics, astronomy, cosmology, nuclear and astroparticle physics as well as the future of physics at the energy frontiers, and topics related to these.

For more information, please visit the workshop website.

SAVE THE DATE.

More information forthcoming or visit website.

Scientific discussion meeting organised by Professor Joseph Silk FRS, Professor John Zarnecki, Professor Ian Crawford and Dr Martin Elvis.

Observatory on the Moon

Low-frequency radio astronomy from the radio-shielded lunar far side can have a unique science impact on cosmology potentially at modest cost. The permanently shadowed lunar craters may offer advantages for passive cooling of infrared telescopes. This meeting will examine these and other potential uses of the Moon as a platform for astronomical observations and the policy implications.

The schedule of talks and speaker biographies are available at the conference website. Speaker abstracts will be available closer to the meeting. Recorded audio of the presentations will be available on this page after the meeting has taken place. Meeting papers will be published in a future issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A.

Poster session

There will be a poster session at 17.00 on Wednesday 18 March. If you would like to apply to present a poster, please submit your title, your abstract (no more than 200 words and in third person), author list, name of the proposed presenter and authors' institutions to the Scientific Programmes team no later than Monday 3 February 2020. Please include the text 'Poster abstract submission' in the subject heading. Please note that places are limited and are selected at the scientific organisers' discretion.

For more information please visit the conference website .

Astrostatistics is developing fast as astronomy is confronted to huge volumes of data. This constitutes undoubtly a new era through a move from object- to data-driven astrophysics. The question that needs to be solved is the following: how can we reconnect statistical results obtained by automatic tools such as machine learning or hypothesis testing, with object-driven inferences derived from visual inspection, modelisation or numerical simulation? How do we reconcile a statistical, hence fuzzy, classification with the visual Hubble sequence of galaxies? How do we describe, synthetize, the data cubes (images + spectra) obtained by IFUs? How can we constrain a model of stellar evolution with the statistics of billions of stars? How do we characterize a scaling law in a 4-D or 10-D dimension parameter space?

In this workshop, we want to focus particularly on the connection between the tools and the astrophysics, between data analysis and science.

Invited speakers:

• Stefano Andreon (INAF, Milano, Italy): Bayesian Physics.
• Roland Bacon (CRAAL, Lyon, France): Hyperspectral Data: experience from MUSE.
• Dovi Poznanski (Tel-Aviv University, Israel): Extracting Knowledge from Massive Spectroscopic Surveys.
• Agnieszka Pollo (Jagiellonian University, Poland): Multivariate Analyses and Classification.
• Stefano Cavuoti (INAF, Naples, Italy): Machine Learning in Astrophysics.
• Laurent Eyer (Obs Geneva, Switzerland): Time Series from Gaia.
• Michael Kuhn (CalTech, USA): Statistical models to study young star clusters and associations.

Oral contributions are welcome: please visit our website. The total number of participants is limited to 50.