During last week's AAS meeting in St. Louis, a "meeting within a meeting" was held to discuss plans for next year's International Year of Astronomy 2009 (IYA2009). One of the projects that Chandra plays a major role in is "From Earth to the Universe", also known lovingly as FETTU.

Selection of image from FETTU

This week, the American Astronomical Society (AAS) holds its biannual meeting in St. Louis, Missouri. The AAS is the largest professional organization in North America and their meetings are intended to give scientists a chance to share their latest results through talks and poster sessions. This will be the 212th meeting and you can find out what's being talked about by looking here: http://aas.org/meetings/aas212/videos

This week, the High Energy Astrophysics Division (HEAD) meeting is taking place at the Omni Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, California. What exactly is HEAD? It is one of the five divisions of the American Astronomical Society (AAS), which is the biggest organization of astronomers in the US (lots of scientists from other countries are members as well.) The AAS has meetings twice a year - in January and then some time in May or June - and then the divisions like HEAD (http://www.aas.org/head) also have their own separate meetings.

Last week, the American Astronomical Society held its bi-annual meeting in Austin, TX. (The AAS, as it's known, always has a winter meeting in early January and then a spring meeting around Memorial Day.) The AAS meetings are important because the AAS is the largest professional group of astronomers in the US and so they often bring some of their most exciting results to share.