(The thread about this #aas247 plenary talk continues here) bsky.app/profile/mbkp...

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:yj436z2s2v37rvaw33lc4ryq/post/3mbx7vm254c2h

The final (8th) #AAS247 presser https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFyIBkNlk5A about Active Galactic Nuclei Across the Universe covered e.g. https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/scientists-find-more-active-black-holes-dwarf-and-milky-way-sized-galaxies-cutting-through-glare and https://www.sdss.org/black-holes-flip-galaxies and https://news.ucsc.edu/2026/01/red-geyser-galaxies/ - but *the* most important announcement from this astronomy conference could well have been the philanthropic donation (!) of an optical 3.1 meter space telescope - #Lazuli, described in detail the paper https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.02556 - and several large ground observatories (see https://www.schmidtsciences.org/schmidt-observatory-system/) like the #ArgusArray to the astronomical community: https://carolinastories.unc.edu/developing-the-worlds-largest-sky-survey-telescope/ and https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/01/eric-schmidt-will-massively-invest-in-private-telescopes-including-hubble-replacement/ and https://www.astronomy.com/science/eric-and-wendy-schmidt-to-fund-space-telescope-three-ground-based-observatories/ and https://www.space.com/space-exploration/former-ceo-of-google-spearheads-4-next-gen-telescopes-3-on-earth-and-1-in-space and https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/schmidt-sciences-announces-plan-for-lazuli-a-private-space-telescope/

The penultimate #AAS247 presser https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiBq0KdXU9c about High Redshifts and High Energies dealt e.g. with An Unlensed Barred Spiral Before Cosmic Noon (https://www.newswise.com/articles/pitt-student-finds-familiar-structure-just-2-billion-years-after-the-big-bang and https://www.umass.edu/news/article/astronomers-find-one-oldest-barred-spiral-galaxies-universe), A precessing jet from an active galactic nucleus (https://public.nrao.edu/news/record-breaking-stream-of-super-heated-gas/ and https://keckobservatory.org/vv340a/ and https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/ecz5crtdymxrlodycogpt/AB32N_1Bh3pyI2SyzbRGkTs?rlkey=zbyz1muz40y1rh8ierpw1yfok&e=1&st=ebs24tqb&dl=0) and the papers AT2024wpp: An Extremely Luminous Fast Ultraviolet Transient Powered by Accretion onto a Black Hole & Multiwavelength Modeling of the Luminous Fast Blue Optical Transient AT2024wpp (https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.03337 and https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.03372 with https://docs.google.com/document/d/1foKS2AQJlWvI4_ZzUlV8pYfkyAsElzkRQ5yo82VWy4s/edit?pli=1&tab=t.0 and https://www.ljmu.ac.uk/about-us/news/articles/2026/1/6/cow and https://public.nrao.edu/news/radio-telescopes-uncover-invisible-gas-around-record-shattering-cosmic-explosion/).