The American Astronomical Society (AAS) owns and operates the core research journals of astronomy and planetary science: The Astrophysical Journal (ApJ, founded 1895 by George Ellery Hale and James Keeler), The Astronomical Journal (AJ), The Astrophysical Journal Letters (ApJL), The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series (ApJS), The Planetary Science Journal (PSJ), and Research Notes of the AAS (RNAAS). If you work in astronomy or astrophysics, one of these six titles is almost certainly where your paper belongs.

Unlike commercial publishers, the AAS is a non-profit professional society founded in 1899 and headquartered in Washington, DC. It keeps full ownership and editorial control of its journals - through its Editor in Chief, Lead Editors, and 30+ Science Editors - while IOP Publishing handles production, hosting, and distribution under a partnership dating to 2008-2009. Since 1 January 2022 all AAS journals are fully open access, and the AAS also removed paywalls from the back catalog.

Six journals covering astronomy, astrophysics, and planetary science - roughly the entire publication pipeline of the field, from rapid letters (ApJL) and brief notes (RNAAS) to standard research articles (ApJ, AJ, PSJ) and archival data papers (ApJS). The AAS also publishes the Bulletin of the AAS for community and meeting content, and co-publishes the AAS-IOP astronomy ebooks program. All research titles are indexed in NASA ADS, Scopus, and Web of Science.

All AAS journals switched to fully Gold open access on 1 January 2022, with articles published under a CC BY 4.0 license and authors retaining copyright. There is no subscription option and no hybrid tier.

Instead of a flat APC, charges are computed from digital quanta: 350 words of text count as one quantum, and each figure, table, and data component adds one more. 2026 pricing:

A typical research article lands in the low-to-mid thousands of dollars; check the AAS charge calculator on journals.aas.org before submitting. Authors who cannot pay can apply to the AAS Publication Support Fund - the Editor in Chief can authorize support of 5-100% depending on need - and AAS members who paid dues before the calendar year get a 15% discount on one article per year.

• Default model: single-anonymized review, usually with one referee per manuscript and a named Science Editor managing the process.
• Double-anonymous review: the default at PSJ and available as an option at the other research titles.
• RNAAS: moderated but not externally peer reviewed - it is a venue for brief timely notes, not refereed articles.
• Turnaround: ApJL prioritizes rapid decisions; ApJ, AJ, ApJS, and PSJ typically run from a few weeks to a few months to first decision.

1. Pick the journal using the scope descriptions above - unified peer review means an ApJ-family submission can be transferred between ApJ, ApJL, and ApJS if the editors judge another fit better.
2. Prepare the manuscript in AASTeX (version 6 or later; v6.3+ recommended) or the AAS Word template - both available on SciSpace with the journal's formatting applied.
3. Use AAS author-year citation style; the BibTeX style files ship with AASTeX.
4. Submit through the AAS peer-review system linked from journals.aas.org for your chosen journal.
5. After acceptance, charges are computed from the final quanta count and production is handled by IOP Publishing.

The AAS is a COPE member and follows COPE guidelines on authorship, corrections, and retractions. Its journals have long-standing data and software citation policies - datasets, software, and figure sets are treated as citable components - and the society publishes a professional code of ethics covering research conduct.

SciSpace hosts approved AAS templates (AASTeX and Word) with the author-year citation style preloaded. Pick your target journal's template, write or import your manuscript, and export a submission-ready file - formatting, references, and section structure are handled automatically.