Issue 19-36, August 15, 2019
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- MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIR: NEW PLANETARY SCIENCE JOURNAL LAUNCHED BY DPS AND AAS
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MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIR: NEW PLANETARY SCIENCE JOURNAL LAUNCHED BY DPS AND AAS
It is my pleasure to announce the creation of The Planetary Science Journal (PSJ),
launched by DPS and AAS. The PSJ is a total Gold Open Access journal whose articles
are freely available on line after publication and will provide broad access to everyone
interested in the most recent planetary science results. At the same time, the DPS
continues to endorse the Elsevier journal Icarus and work closely with its editorial
staff. DPS looks forward to continuing this relationship for the benefit of its members.
The advertisement for a PSJ editor can be found on the AAS Job Register at
https://jobregister.aas.org/ad/cfd23f2c
Details will be provided in a subsequent DPS Newsletter.
Linda Spilker
DPS Chair
The press release from DPS and AAS on the new journal is given below:
NEW “GOLD OPEN ACCESS” PLANETARY SCIENCE JOURNAL LAUNCHED BY
AMERICAN ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY & DIVISION FOR PLANETARY SCIENCES
Research articles reporting significant developments, discoveries, and theories about planets, moons,
small bodies, and the interactions among them will soon have a new showcase: The Planetary Science
Journal (PSJ). This online publication is being launched by the American Astronomical Society (AAS),
the major organization of professional astronomers in North America, in conjunction with the largest of
its six topical divisions, the AAS Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS). The new journal will publish
important research directly relevant to our solar system and other planetary systems, including observational
results, theoretical insights, modeling, laboratory studies, instrumentation, and field studies.
PSJ joins the Astronomical Journal (AJ), the Astrophysical Journal (ApJ), ApJ Letters (ApJL), and the ApJ
Supplement Series (ApJS) as the newest of the AAS’s peer-reviewed research journals, which are produced
in partnership with IOP Publishing in the United Kingdom. But PSJ will differ from AJ and the ApJ family
in an important way: It will be entirely “gold open access,” meaning all its articles will be free for all to read
immediately upon publication. Though the other AAS journals allow authors to publish their articles under
the gold open access model for an additional fee, the default for those journals is “green open access,” in which
articles are available only to paid subscribers for the first year and then freely to anyone after that period.
Like the other AAS journals, PSJ will feature a quick turnaround from receipt through review to publication.
The Editor of the new journal is yet to be named; the AAS and DPS have launched a search among the community
of planetary scientists and expect to have someone in place soon. The PSJ Editor, along with Ethan Vishniac,
Editor in Chief of the AAS journals, will rely on a combination of established AAS Science Editors and new
Science Editors for the PSJ — along with the AAS Publishing team — to guide submissions through peer review
and revision and then transmit accepted manuscripts to IOP Publishing for online publication.
“Our goal in launching this journal,” explains Vishniac, “is to provide a nonprofit venue for publication of research
in this field that is driven only by our desire to help planetary scientists disseminate their results to the broadest possible
audience, in the most comprehensive and useful way, and at the lowest possible cost to everyone.”
According to DPS Chair Linda Spilker (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), now is an ideal time to create a new outlet for the
publication of planetary science research. “Dozens of countries are now involved in the exploration of the solar system,”
she says. “Spacecraft are transmitting images and other observations from within the orbit of Mercury to beyond the orbit
of Pluto, producing a data deluge that’s keeping a growing number of scientists and students busier than ever. With so
much information coming from distant robotic explorers, Earth-orbiting observatories, ground-based telescopes, and
planetary scientists in the field and in their labs,” adds Spilker, “it’s critical to get new findings into the community’s
and public’s hands quickly, and the Planetary Science Journal will help do just that.”
“I’m excited about this new venture,” says AAS President Megan Donahue (Michigan State University). “The DPS is
our Society’s largest division, but most of the research published in our journals has involved stellar, galactic, and
extragalactic astronomy and astrophysics. With PSJ we’ll now be able to showcase planetary science more effectively.
This new journal will benefit not only the research community, but also students of all ages. I know there is broad
interest in new findings about our own solar system as well as the many exotic planets we’re now discovering around
other stars.”
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Anne Verbiscer, DPS Secretary ([email protected])
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