Astronomy & Astrophysics
Astronomy & Astrophysics (A&A) [1] is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering theoretical, observational, and instrumental astronomy and astrophysics. It is operated by an editorial team under the supervision of a board of directors representing 27 sponsoring countries plus a representative of the European Southern Observatory. The journal is published by EDP Sciences and the current editors-in-chief are Thierry Forveille and João Alves.
This article is about the journal affiliated with the European Southern Observatory. For the publication by the Goodsell Observatory, see Astronomy and Astro-Physics. Not to be confused with Journal of Astrophysics and Astronomy.Discipline
English
Thierry Forveille, João Alves
1969–present
Monthly
Yes
CC BY 4.0
6.5 (2022)
Astron. Astrophys.
History[edit]
Origins[edit]
Astronomy & Astrophysics was created as an answer to the publishing situation found in Europe in the 1960s. At that time, multiple journals were being published in several countries around the continent. These journals usually had a limited number of subscribers, and articles were written in languages other than English. They were less widely read than American and British journals and the research they reported had therefore less impact in the community.[2]
Starting in 1963, conversations between astronomers from European countries assessed the need for a common astronomical journal. On 8 April 1968, leading astronomers from Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Scandinavian countries met in Leiden University to prepare a possible merging of some of the principal existing journals. It was proposed that the new journal be called Astronomy and Astrophysics, A European Journal.[3]
The main policy-making body of the new journal was to be the "Board of Directors", consisting of senior astronomers or government representatives of the sponsoring countries. The board appoints the editors-in chief, who are responsible for the scientific contents of the journal. The European Southern Observatory was chosen as an additional body that acts on behalf of the board and handles the administrative, financial, and legal matters of the journal.
A second meeting held in July 1968 in Brussels cemented the agreement discussed in Leiden. Each nation established an annual monetary contribution and appointed its delegates for the board of directors. Also at this meeting, the first editors-in-chief were appointed: Stuart Pottasch and Jean-Louis Steinberg.
The next meeting took place in Paris on 11 October 1968 and is officially regarded as the first meeting of the board of directors. At this meeting, the first chairman of the board, Adriaan Blaauw, was appointed, and the contract with the publisher Springer Science+Business Media was formalized.
Sponsoring countries[edit]
The original sponsoring countries were the four countries whose journals merged to form Astronomy & Astrophysics (France, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden), together with Belgium, Denmark, Finland, and Norway. Norway later withdrew, but Austria, Greece, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland joined during the 1970s and 1980s. The Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia all joined as new members in the 1990s.
In 2001 the words "A European Journal" were removed from the front cover in recognition of the fact that the journal was becoming increasingly global in scope. In effect, Argentina was admitted as an "observer" in 2002. In 2004 the board of directors decided that the journal "will henceforth consider applications for sponsoring membership from any country in the world with well-documented active and excellent astronomical research".[13] Argentina became the first non-European country to gain full membership in 2005, followed by Brazil and Chile in 2006 (Brazil withdrew in 2016). Other European countries also joined during the 21st century: Portugal, Croatia, and Bulgaria during the 2010s, and Armenia, Lithuania, Norway, Serbia and Ukraine in the 2010s.The current list of member countries is listed here.[14]
The following persons are or have been chairs of the Board of Directors:
Open access[edit]
Before 2022, the most recent issue of A&A was available free of charge for readers. Authors had the option to pay article processing charges (APC) for immediate and permanent open access. Furthermore, all Letters to the Editor and all articles published in Sections 12 to 15 were in free access at no cost to the authors. Articles in the other sections of the journal were made freely available 12 months after publication (delayed open-access), through the publisher's site and via the Astrophysics Data System.
Since the beginning of 2022, Astronomy & Astrophysics is published in full open access under the Subscribe to Open (S2O) model.
Scientific Writing School[edit]
A&A organises Scientific Writing Schools[15] aimed at postgraduate students and young researchers. The purpose of these schools is to teach young authors how to express their scientific results through adequate and efficient science writing. As of 2019, five of these schools were organised in Belgium (2008 and 2009), Hungary (2014), Chile (2016) and China (2019).