US NGO at the AAS #241 Meeting

The US National Gemini Office, at the Community Science and Data Center/NSF's NOIRLab, hosted a Splinter Session at the 241st AAS Meeting in Seattle. The meeting was part of a planned series in which scientists show their results based on Gemini observations, focusing on a particular topic. The main topic for the Splinter Session was the importance of Gemini observations in the JWST era. For the scientific program, we focused on science enhanced by the synergy between Gemini and JWST data, for example, to encourage the usage of Gemini data to plan and enrich the results from Webb. The speakers were not exclusively PIs/co-Is of JWST-approved programs, but also included scientists planning or already working on data from both (and possibly other) observatories to increase their science scope.

The Splinter Session was open to all interested, and included an introduction, five science talks (listed below), and general discussion at the end. Invited speakers are current and potential Gemini users who have shown an interest in combining their Gemini data with JWST observations. We included science topics covering several of the main Webb themes, such as planets and exoplanets, stellar populations and the ISM, galaxies, high-energy astrophysics, and cosmology.

Links to presentations (abstracts) and slides:

• Jillian Rastinejad (CIERA Northwestern) — Building on the Neutron Star Merger Counterpart Diversity Revealed by Gemini Observatory with JWST
• Ryan Lau (NSF's NOIRLab) — Revealing and Resolving Dusty Stellar Outbursts with Gemini and JWST
• Alexandra Tetarenko (Texas Tech University) — Probing the dynamic environment near stellar-mass black holes with Gemini and JWST
• Adam McKay (Appalachian State University) — Gemini Observations of Active Centaurs Observed by JWST NIRSPEC
• Daichi Hiramatsu (CfA Harvard-Smithsonian) — Gemini-JWST Synergies for Revealing Progenitors and Mechanisms of Cosmic Explosions

2023 AAS Splinter Session: The Role of Gemini Observations in the Era of JWST

SOC: Letizia Stanghellini (Chair, NSF's NOIRLab/CSDC), Vinicius Placco (NSF's NOIRLab/CSDC), Janice Lee (NSF's NOIRLab/Gemini)