mo4ch:>‘Highly detrimental’: Shutdown means NASA misses out on ‘Super Bowl of astronomy’ | Mo4ch News

Hundreds of NASA employees won’t be attending the American Astronomical Society’s biggest conference of the year, dubbed the ‘Super Bowl of astronomy,’ because of the ongoing government shutdown.More than 3,000 scientists and astronomers are scheduled to attend the 233rd meeting of the AAS at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle from Sunday to Thursday. However, the society estimates that between 300 and 450 of those registered have been barred from attending.The government shutdown is entering its fourth week, meaning more than 380 “non-essential” federal staff are still on furlough or unpaid leave – including around 95 percent of NASA employees.READ MORE: US transport security workers forced to work for free during shutdown call in sick en masseThere are more than 2,400 lectures scheduled across the five-day conference, many of which were supposed to cover NASA’s latest spacecrafts, breakthroughs and mystifying findings. These include early results from NASA’s new Trans…