Galaxy-scale strong lensing is a powerful tool in Astrophysics and Cosmology, enabling studies of massive galaxies’ internal structure, their formation and evolution, stellar initial mass function, and cosmological parameters. In this conference proceeding, we highlight key findings from the past decade in astrophysical applications of strong lensing at the galaxy scale. We then briefly summarize the present status of discovery and analyses of new samples from recent or ongoing surveys. Finally, we offer insights into anticipated developments in the upcoming era of big data shaping the future of this field, thanks to the Rubin, Euclid, and Roman observatories.

In discussing open question in the field of massive stars, I consider their evolution from birth to death. After touching upon massive star formation, which may be bi-modal and not lead to a zero-age main sequence at the highest masses, I consider the consequences of massive stars being close to their Eddington limit. Then, when discussing the effects of a binary companion, I highlight the importance of massive Algols and contact binaries for understanding the consequences of mass transfer, and the role of binaries in forming Wolf-Rayet stars. Finally, a discussion on pair instability supernovae and of superluminous supernovae is provided.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) has started operations at the summit of Haleakalā (Hawai’i). DKIST joins the nominal science phases of the NASA and ESA Parker Solar Probe and Solar Orbiter encounter missions. By combining in-situ measurements of the near-Sun plasma environment and detailed remote observations of multiple layers of the Sun, the three observatories form an unprecedented multi-messenger constellation to study the magnetic connectivity in the solar system. This work outlines the synergistic science that this multi-messenger suite enables.

Cepheids have been the cornerstone of the extragalactic distance scale for a century. With high-quality data, these luminous supergiants exhibit a small dispersion in their Leavitt (period–luminosity) relation, particularly at longer wavelengths, and few methods rival the precision possible with Cepheid distances. In these proceedings, we present an overview of major observational programs pertaining to the Cepheid extragalactic distance scale, its progress and remaining challenges. In addition, we present preliminary new results on Cepheids from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The launch of JWST has opened a new chapter in the measurement of extragalactic distances and the Hubble constant. JWST offers a resolution three times that of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) with nearly 10 times the sensitivity. It has been suggested that the discrepancy in the value of the Hubble constant based on Cepheids compared to that inferred from measurements of the cosmic microwave background requires new and additional physics beyond the standard cosmological model. JWST observations will be critical in reducing remaining systematics in the Cepheid measurements and for confirming if new physics is indeed required. Early JWST data for the galaxy, NGC 7250 show a decrease in scatter in the Cepheid Leavitt law by a factor of two relative to existing HST data and demonstrate that crowding/blending effects are a significant issue in a galaxy as close as 20 Mpc.

At the 1988 IAU General Assembly in Baltimore, among many who offered reminiscences of earlier meetings was Charlotte Moore Sitterly. She first attended the 1932 GA meeting, in Cambridge, Mass., though she already “helped to assemble material for delegates” since the 1920s, for astronomers at Princeton, Mount Wilson and Lick Observatory. She was an ardent member of the new Commission 14 (then called “Fundamental Spectroscopic Data”), eventually becoming its president. In her 1988 reminiscence, she recalled that the Commission meeting was sparsely attended and very informal, but astronomers’ “never-ending demand for tables and data analysis” soon changed all that (Sitterly 1988). Here we provide a brief overview of how Charlotte Moore Sitterly came to be at the very center of that change, which Donald Menzel early on described as having “turned chaos into order” and just a “little short of miraculous” (Menzel 1928) We will recount highlights of her early life, aspirations, training, and contributions during her years at Princeton, Berkeley, Mount Wilson, and the National Bureau of Standards.

H2O megamaser emission from sub-parsec circumnuclear disks at the center of active galaxies allows a single-step, direct distance measurements to galaxies in the Hubble flow without any external calibration. Based on accurate distance determinations of six maser galaxies within 150 Mpc, the Megamaser Cosmology Project (MCP) team recently obtained H0 = 73.9± 3.0 km/s/Mpc (‘∼ 4% accuracy), independent of distance ladders and the cosmic microwave background. To further applying the megamaser technique to attain a 1% Ho measurement, detecting more high-quality disk maser systems is crucial. In this conference proceeding, we update the status of the MCP and discuss strategies of detecting additional high-quality disk maser galaxies within z ∼ 0.1. In addition, we show the prospects of reaching a 1% Ho measurement with the supreme sensitivity of the ngVLA. Finally, we demonstrate that applying the maser technique to distance measurements of high-z galaxies with future submm VLBI systems is promising and this will allow for investigation of the new tension between the ΛCDM model and the high-z Hubble diagram.

We present the first results from JWST/NIRSPEC spectroscopy of massive quiescent galaxy candidates at 3<z<4 to complete the spectroscopic survey of Schreiber et al. 2018. In the first six objects targeted (all of which were too faint to secure spectroscopic identifications from the ground) they all are confirmed as yet more massive quiescent galaxies at 3<z<4. The JWST spectra are high signal-to-noise and unambiguous. Most of them have ages of a few hundred Myr from stellar population fits to the spectra and about 1/3 show sign of AGN emission lines. One extraordinary object of stellar mass 1.6×1011 M⊙ shows a red spectrum with evidence of a 4000Å break and an age of ≳ 1Gyr at z=3.2 and forming at z>6.

Mercury is locked in an unusual 3:2 spin-orbit resonance and as such is expected to be in a state of equilibrium called Cassini state. In that state, the angle between the spin axis and orbit normal, called obliquity, remains almost constant while the spin axis remains almost in the plane, also called Cassini plane, defined by the normal to the Laplace plane and the normal to the orbital plane. The spin axis and the orbit normal precess together with a period of about 300 kyr. The orientation of the spin axis of Mercury has been estimated using different approaches: (i) Earth-based radar observations, (ii) Messenger images and altimeter data, and (iii) Messenger radio tracking data. The different estimates all tend to confirm that Mercury occupies the Cassini state. The observed obliquity is small and close to 2 arcmin. It indicates a normalized polar moment of inertia of about 0.34. This information, combined with the existence of a liquid iron core, as evidenced by the librations, allows to constrain the interior structure of Mercury. However, the different estimates of the orientation of the spin axis locate the spin axis somewhat behind or ahead of the Cassini plane, and it is difficult to reconcile and interpret them coherently in terms of detailed interior properties. We review recent models for the obliquity and spin orientation of Mercury, which include the effects of complex orbital dynamics, tidal deformations and associated dissipation, and internal couplings related to the presence of fluid and solid cores. We discuss some implications regarding the interpretations of the orientation estimates in term of interior properties.

The Aditya-L1 is the first space-based solar observatory of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). The spacecraft will carry seven payloads providing uninterrupted observations of the Sun from the first Lagrangian point. Aditya-L1 comprises four remote sensing instruments, viz. a coronagraph observing in visible and infrared, a full disk imager in Near Ultra-Violet (NUV), and two full-sun integrated spectrometers in soft X-ray and hard X-ray. In addition, there are three instruments for in-situ measurements, including a magnetometer, to study the magnetic field variations during energetic events. Aditya-L1 is truly a mission for multi-messenger solar astronomy from space that will provide comprehensive observations of the Sun across the electromagnetic spectrum and in-situ measurements in a broad range of energy, including magnetic field measurements at L1.

An overview is provided of the scientific goals of the Magellanic Cloud component of the STScI Directors Discretionary UV initiative ULLYSES, together with the complementary spectroscopic survey XShootU (VLT/Xshooter) and other ancillary datasets. Together, ULLYSES and XShootU permit the first comprehensive, homogeneous study of wind densities and velocities in metal-poor massive stars, plus UV/optical spectroscopic libraries for population synthesis models and a large number of interstellar sight-lines towards the Magellanic Clouds.

Most (yet not all) results of atomic physics research of Charlotte Moore Sitterly (CMS), which was closely connected to astrophysics, are now incorporated in online databases, one of which is the Atomic Spectra Database of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The use of this database extends far beyond astrophysics, but this review focuses on astrophysical applications. The impact of CMS’s work on modern atomic physics and other sciences is discussed, and problems that urgently need solutions are outlined.

We review the local determination of the Hubble constant, H0, focusing on recent measurements of a distance ladder constructed from geometry, Cepheid variables and Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia). We explain in some detail the components of the ladder: (1) geometry from Milky Way parallaxes, masers in NGC 4258 and detached eclipsing binaries in the Large Magellanic Cloud; (2) measurements of Cepheids with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) in these anchors and in the hosts of 42 SNe Ia; and (3) SNe Ia in the Hubble flow. Great attention to negating systematic uncertainties through the use of differential measurements is reviewed. A wide array of tests are discussed. The measurements provide a strong indication of a discrepancy between the local measure of H0 and its value predicted by Λ Cold Dark Matter theory, calibrated by the cosmic microwave background (Planck), a decade-long challenge known as the ‘Hubble Tension’. We present new measurements with the James Webb Space Telescope of >320 Cepheids on both rungs of the distance ladder, in a SN Ia host and the geometric calibrator NGC 4258, showing good agreement with the same as measured with HST. This provides strong evidence that systematic errors in HST Cepheid photometry do not play a significant role in the present Hubble Tension. Future measurements are expected to refine the local determination of the Hubble constant.

The distribution of mass in galaxy-scale strong gravitational lenses is often modelled as an elliptical power law plus ‘external shear’, which notionally accounts for line-of-sight galaxies and cosmic shear. We argue that it does not, using three lines of evidence from the analysis of 54 galaxy-scale strong lenses: (i) strong lensing external shears do not correlate with weak lensing; (ii) the measured shear magnitudes in strong lenses (which are field galaxies) are too large (exceeding 0.05) for their environment and; (iii) the external shear position angle preferentially aligns or anti-aligns with the mass model position angle, indicating an internal origin. We argue the measured strong lensing shears are therefore systematically accounting for missing complexity in the canonical elliptical power-law mass model. If we can introduce this complexity into our lens models, this will further lensing studies of galaxy formation, dark matter and Cosmology.

Understanding properties of galaxies in the epoch of reionization (EoR) is a frontier in the modern astronomy. ALMA observations have demonstrated that i) some [O iii] 88 μm emitters have matured stellar populations at z>6, implying early star formation activity at z>10, and that ii) high-z star-forming galaxies typically have very high [O iii] 88 μm-to-[C ii] 158 μm luminosity ratios ranging from 3 to 12 or higher, indicating interstellar media of high-z galaxies could be highly ionized. We discuss initial results of a medium-sized JWST GO1 program that targets a sample of 12 z=6–8 ALMA [O iii] 88 μm emitters with NIRCam and NIRSPec IFU modes (GO-1840). Our JWST GO1 program, in conjunction with ALMA data, will characterize the stellar, nebular, and dust properties of these [O iii] 88 μm emitters and place this galaxies in the context of reionization.

Water vapor maser emission from a Seyfert 2 galaxy IC2560 was observed with sensitive VLBI. The accurate black hole mass was determined by separating the mass of the disk surrounding the black hole. In addition, the distance of the galaxy was directly measured from the maser disk. The Hubble constant determined using the distances and recession velocities of IC2560 and othere megamasers is inconsistent with that determined with CMB by 3–6 km s-1 Mpc-1.

Circumstellar planets in binary star systems provide unique constraints on the formation and dynamical evolution of planets. We present an empirical formula for the stability boundary of coplanar retrograde orbits, similar to the classic one for coplanar prograde orbits. We discuss two of the tightest binaries with circumstellar planets: HD 59686 and ν Octantis. For HD 59686, dynamical fitting of the radial velocity data and stability analysis show that the planet must be either on a nearly coplanar retrograde orbit or in one of the narrow regions of prograde orbits stabilized by secular apsidal alignment. For ν Octantis, a nearly coplanar retrograde planetary orbit is the only option for dynamical stability. We also discuss the mysterious case of ε Cygni. It shows short-period radial velocity variations that closely resemble the signal of a Jupiter-mass planet, but the period and amplitude change over time and dynamical stability analysis rules out a planet.

The luminosity of the brightest stars (tip) of the red giant branch (TRGB) in the color–magnitude diagrams of old stars was used early on to introduce the ‘multiple stellar populations’ concept, in 1944, by Walter Baade. However, the precision and accuracy of the TRGB for distance estimation has not been known well for long. In the modern era, equipped with high spatial resolution imaging telescopes, the TRGB is considered an excellent standard candle for any type of resolved galaxies, thus representing a powerful probe for cosmology. The TRGB has several advantages over the classical Cepheids. I review how we can apply the TRGB in cosmology. Four science cases, from large to small scales, are presented: (1) the Hubble flow with Type Ia supernovae; (2) Virgo Cluster infall and dark matter; (3) dark galaxies; and (4) dark matter-free galaxies.

Current searches for galaxy-scale strong lenses focus on massive Luminous Red Galaxies but tend to overlook late-type lenses, in part because of their smaller Einstein radii. We take advantage of the superb seeing of the UNIONS survey in the r-band to perform an imaging search for edge-on late-type lenses. We use Convolutional Neural Networks trained with simulated observations composed of images of real galaxies from UNIONS and real sources from HST. Using 3600 square degrees of the survey we test ∼7 million galaxies and find 56 systems with obvious signs of lensing. In addition, we empirically estimate the true prevalence of lenses in UNIONS by visually inspecting 120,000 randomly chosen images in the survey. We find that the number of edge-on lenses we discover with CNNs is compatible with these estimates.