NICER / ISS Science Nugget
for January 11, 2024




"Les bons temps" at the AAS

This week, members of the NICER team attended the Winter meeting of the American Astronomical Society, the largest professional astronomy event of the year. The meeting, in New Orleans, LA, attracted upwards of 3,500 attendees. In addition to multiple science talks and posters from users of NICER data, the mission had a presence at the NASA Astrophysics booth in the conference center's exhibit hall (see photos), including display materials such as flight-spares of NICER hardware, hands-on plastic models, ISS stickers and pins, and video. A NICER presentation by NICER Deputy Principal Investigator and Science Lead Dr. Zaven Arzoumanian at the NASA Hyperwall was well attended. Among the highlights of the event was a plenary lecture by NICER Science Team member Dr. Renee Ludlam (Wayne State Univ.), winner of the 2023 AAS Newton Lacy Pierce Prize, awarded for outstanding achievement in observational astronomical research based on measurements of radiation from an astronomical object within the last five years. This is the second Pierce Prize winner in successive years whose award-winning research involved a substantive NICER data-analysis component.

NICER Team members Dr. Elizabeth Ferrara (left; NICER General Observer Facility Lead Scientist) and Isiah Holt (right; Univ. of Maryland graduate student) staff the NICER table at the NASA Astrophysics booth. NICER Science Team Lead Dr. Zaven Arzoumanian (NASA GSFC) gives a Hyperwall presentation on the NICER mission.

Left: NICER Team members Dr. Elizabeth Ferrara (left; NICER General Observer Facility Lead Scientist) and Isiah Holt (right; Univ. of Maryland graduate student) staff the NICER table at the NASA Astrophysics booth. Right: NICER Science Team Lead Dr. Zaven Arzoumanian (NASA GSFC) gives a Hyperwall presentation on the NICER mission.



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