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ILWS Newsletter Volume 1
Contents
1) ILWS Steering Committee Chair's Report
Dear ILWS Colleagues, It is hard to believe that ILWS has already reached its fifth anniversary. Our program was initiated in January 2002, and as I look back on our activities I am proud of the many accomplishments we share. In the past year alone, we have seen the addition of several new members and activities, and the launch of the Hinode, THEMIS and STEREO missions, adding to our "Heliophysics Great Observatory." And this year, 2007, has seen the launch of the International Heliophysical Year, a program inspired and supported by many of our international ILWS activities. Within NASA in the United States, we have a new "Heliophysics" science division to address the system science of the sun and its influence on the planetary environment. The charter of this division is the "Exploration of the Sun, its influence on earth and the planets of the Solar System and the space environmental conditions and their evolution that will be experienced by human and robotic explorers. A broad charter for this division, it emphasizes the understanding of the underlying physics of this complex, coupled dynamic system with the sun at its center and the goal is to predict this system behavior to the point of prediction. We are proud that many of the early successes of the International Solar Terrestrial Program (ISTP) and later NASA's LWS program have helped inspire these new heliophysical activities. Still, many challenges lie before us. To understand the physical conditions that drive the system from Sun to Earth and beyond we need many observations and modeling efforts, requiring a greater effort than can be mounted in a single program or by a single nation. ILWS will continue to address these vital issues through our international partnerships. Collaborations in data sharing and modeling, especially in the context of the new missions and upcoming missions, are essential if we are to achieve a high scientific impact. Therefore, as I assume the role of ILWS Steering Committee Chair, I would like to thank the previous chairs of ILWS, Hermann Opgenoorth and William Liu, who have carried the ball for the past 4 years and whose hard work and leadership have led ILWS to be an example of a model international working group. It is also important to recognize the important efforts and leadership of ILWS Steering Committee member Professor Takeo Kosugi, who passed away last November. ILWS mourns the loss of Kosugi-san, whose contribution to all international endeavors such as ILWS, IHY, and CAWSES will be sorely missed. Finally, I would like to acknowledge George Withbroe's help in creating this new initiative and then helping the program as a senior consultant. I hope you enjoy this first issue of the ILWS newsletter. I found the reports of recent activities and new missions to be very inspiring. Please join me in welcoming Morocco and our new team members, and I look forward to continue hearing good news in the years to come.
2) National Reportshttp://ihy2007.org/img/THEMIS_event.jpgMorocco Joins ILWS as a New Member Nation
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The scientific objective of Hinode is to study these four topics:
Modulation of the Sun's Luminosity Generation of UV and X Radiation Eruption and Expansion of the Sun's Atmosphere Hinode was developed by JAXA, NASA and PPARC. The Hinode Science Center website can be found at http://solar-b.nao.ac.jp/index_e.shtml |
compiled from contributions from T. Shimuzu (JAXA), S.V.H. Haughan (UIO) and C. Alex Young (GSFC)
Hinode science data have now been released to the scientific community, which has generated a great deal of excitement at the recent meeting of the Solar Physics Division of the American Astronomical Society. The Hinode Science Center provides data access, information for data users, and tools for such as the Conjunction Event Finder through the DARTS data system. Please review the official Hinode Data Policy prior to use.The Hinode Science Data Centre Europe at the University of Oslo also serves all of Hinode's science data to the solar community at http://sdc.uio.no/.
Some features are:
* searches based on all available fits keywords
Contact oslo-sdc {AT} astro.uio.no if you have any problems, questions or requests for the Hinode Science Data Centre Europe (additional derived fields for searching, alternate grouping methods, on-site processing, visits, etc).
* feedback on individual & overall search criteria
* derived fields (e.g. min/max/center radial coordinate)
* grouping of files by several categories
* summarise searches to find the ranges covered by your selection
* sort and restrict your searches using any field
* save & manage your favourite searches (or just bookmark them)
* images (thumbnails & medium-size) of all files
* full fits-header view & quick single-file download
* an IDL-based client for search & download (in SSW)
* IDL-client scripts ready to copy & paste
* on-site processing of large amounts of data with your IDL programs - to narrow down selection (statistics extraction, feature/event detection) or for pre-processing (e.g. line profile fitting)
* rsync access for full or partial mirror sites
* visitor facilities (office, workstations) for up to two guests
submitted by David Sibeck, ILWS Executive Secretary
The five identically-instrumented THEMIS spacecraft launched from Cape Canaveral on February 17, 2007. Since that time, all instruments have been powered on and are operating normally. As of mid-May 2007, the spin plane and axial booms of the electric field experiments were deploying. The spacecraft are presently in near-identical 1.2 x 14.7 RE orbits with apogee located near dusk and orbital periods of 31 hours. During a test run on March 23, 2007, the spacecraft observed a substorm dipolarization propagating duskward through the pre-midnight magnetosphere. Orbits will remain the same until apogee reaches mid-morning local times this October, when the spacecraft will be moved to their final orbits: three with apogee near 12 RE, one with apogee near 18 RE, and one with apogee near 30 RE. A dedicated array of ground magnetometers and all-sky cameras has been set up throughout Canada and the Northern United States in support of, and as part of, the THEMIS mission.
At 1115 UT on March 23, 2007, the 5 THEMIS spacecraft were arrayed perpendicular to the Sun-Earth line in the Earth's magnetotail, where they observed dipolarization (reconfiguration) of the Earth's magnetic field propagate duskward from spacecraft D to B to A and then to E. Spacecraft C was located to near Earth to see the event. The dedicated array of ground observatories reported an auroral brightening. This fortuitous event provides a proof-of-concept for the timing concepts that underlie the mission, which will enter its primary science phase during the Winter of 2007-2008.The primary objective of the THEMIS mission is to pinpoint the location and time where substorms begin. This objective will be fulfilled during the Winter seasons of 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 when the apogees of the THEMIS spacecraft line up radially once each four days within the Earth’s magnetotail over the ground array of North American stations. Secondary and tertiary objectives include radiation belt and dayside (magnetopause/bow shock) science.
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The principle investigator for the THEMIS mission is Dr. Vassilis Angelopoulis of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.
The THEMIS science team has members in the United States, Austria, Canada, ESA,
France, Germany, Japan, and Russia. More information about THEMIS can be found at http://themis.ssl.berkeley.edu and http://www.nasa.gov/themis. |
submitted by Terry Kucera and Michael Kaiser, STEREO Project
STEREO was launched on October 25, 2006 on a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral. Both spacecraft are now in orbit around the Sun, and all instruments are turned on and in normal operations. Current spacecraft separation as of May 15, 2007 is 8 degrees. By the end of 2007 they will have reached a separation of almost 44 degrees. Early landmarks have included our first in situ detection of a magnetic cloud, energetic particles from several small solar events and the Earth's magnetopause and bow shock, and tracing CMEs through all 5 STEREO/SECCHI imagers and stereoscopic images of the EUV corona.The STEREO Space Weather Beacon network is partially operational. Because the STEREO science data is often not available in time to influence forecasts, this special "beacon mode" was implemented to ensure that space weather data (a small, compressed, specially chosen subset of the science data) would be available 24 hours a day. Beacon antennae in Chibolton England and Koganei Japan are currently receiving STEREO real time beacon telemetry and sending data back to the STEREO Science Center where it is being processed. The station in Fairbanks, Alaska should be on line soon, and stations in France and other locations in the US will be added this summer.
The Beacon data and regular STEREO data files can be found at the STEREO Science Center web site at http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/ and images and information from the recent STEREO "3-D" media event are available at http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/new.shtml.
3-D image of the Sun constructed from SECCHI's EUVI imager. Special red-blue viewing glasses are needed to view the image in 3 dimensions.
STEREO's scientific objectives are to:
Characterize the propagation of CMEs through the heliosphere. Discover the mechanisms and sites of energetic particle acceleration in the low corona and the interplanetary medium. Improve the determination of the structure of the ambient solar wind. STEREO is a joint ESA/NASA Mission. The STEREO home page can be found at http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/ |
submitted by Walter Gonzales, ILWS Delegate for INPE National Space Research Institute, Brazil
The Brazilian National Institute for Space Research, INPE, has been working in the area of space science and technology since 1962. One of our special interests is to understand the dynamical and chemical characteristics of the equatorial atmosphere. Ground-based observations carried out until now are not sufficient to understand such large-scale phenomena. Further observations on a global scale are needed. For this reason a satellite-based observation scheme for monitoring the equatorial upper atmosphere on a global scale has been developed by the Brazilian scientific community. We hope that the Equatorial Atmosphere Research Satellite (EQUARS) will make an important contribution to the international communities.
The Scientific Mission of EQUARS is "global scale monitoring of the Earth’s equatorial low, middle and upper atmosphere-ionosphere," the science objectives are to " Study of the dynamical, photochemical and ionospheric processes in the equatorial low, middle and upper atmosphere. Special topics to be investigated are: tropospheric water vapor, temperature variability in the stratosphere and mesosphere, tidal and planetary wave propagation, and ionospheric plasma irregularity and bubbles."
The scientific payload will include real-time monitoring data of the tropospheric water vapor, stratospheric temperature profile, and total electron content in the ionosphere by GPS radio occultation measurements, which will be applied to numerical weather and climate predictions and space weather monitoring, respectively.
EQUARS, a project of the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research, is ending the satellite construction and software development phase, and is due to start the integration and test phase later this year. The launch window begins in 2009.
submitted by Dean Pesnell, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Flares and coronal mass ejections are the hurricanes of space weather. Just as a hurricane prediction is useful to coastal dwellers, a solar cycle prediction is useful to satellite operators. As the sun heads into a new season of activity, a 12-member panel tried to predict the size and timing of the upcoming Solar Cycle 24. Although the 12-member panel charged with forecasting Cycle 24 agreed the peak of Solar Cycle 24 should arrive in late 2011 or mid-2012, they remain evenly split over the size of the peak.Half of the members predict a moderately strong solar maximum sunspot number of 140 peaking in October of 2011, while the others expect for a moderately weak maximum sunspot number of 90 peaking in August of 2012. (An average solar maximum ranges from 75 to 155 sunspots.)
The prediction panel awaits the actual start of Cycle 24 before refining their predictions. The forecasters agreed that the current solar cycle (Cycle 23) will probably end next between January and June of 2008. How rapidly the sunspot number increases in the first 2 years of Cycle 24 begins will provide an accurate prediction of its peak value.
Approximately 50 predictions were considered by the panel. Predictions were requested from the community, submitted by panel members, and extracted from the literature. The panel members decided to concentrate on predictions that added information to the sunspot record or used physics to model the variations of the solar dynamo. Our bi-model distribution comes from this decision, with the memory of the Sun becoming the important factor. The polar-field precursor method produced a short-memory prediction of a weak Cycle 24 and a physics-based model produced long-memory prediction of a strong Cycle 24.
For more information on the Solar Cycle 24 prediction panel, please go to the panel's home page at http://www.sec.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/SC24/index.html.
The 2007 ILWS Working Group Meeting will be held 11-13 June 2007 in Uppsala Sweden. The meeting will be hosted by the Swedish National Space Board. All ILWS Delegates and Task Group chairs are encouraged to attend. Delegates and member organizations that are not able to attend the working group meeting are encouraged to send updates that will be presented by the Steering Committee.
The meeting home page is at http://ilws.gsfc.nasa.gov/ilws_mtg_sweden07.htm
Presentations from the meeting will be posted on the page in mid-June.
The NASA Living With a Star program will host a major scientific workshop on 10-13 September 2007 in Boulder, Colorado, at the NCAR High Altitude Observatory.
With Hinode returning spectacular data, the STEREO spacecraft moving in their orbits away from the Earth, and the launch of the Solar Dynamics Observatory only a year away, the focus of this workshop will naturally be on new and expected results from solar and inner-heliospheric instrumentation. These developments will be discussed within the LWS context of the complete Sun-to-Earth connection, ranging from solar dynamo to Earth climate, including all realms in between.
The sessions are composed from sets of four types of presentations: (1) invited tutorials for the non-expert that give overviews of the state of our knowledge in a particular field that either lies somewhat outside of the main focus area, or where there are particularly large uncertainties or unknowns; (2) invited talks that summarize very recent developments, new mission results, or key focus areas within a particular area; (3) contributed talks; and (4) posters. There will also be plenary discussion sessions on the (I)LWS program, its architecture, and the expectations for its future progress.
On the day following the workshop, 14 September 2007, conference rooms at HAO will be available to mission teams, focused science groups, and ad-hoc groups wishing to exploit the opportunity for splinter meetings.
Workshop Website: http://www.lmsal.com/lws2007/
In recent years, many new satellite instruments capable of polar measurements have been launched. This has given unique opportunities to study effects of particle precipitation in the middle atmosphere.
The International HEPPA Workshop on High-Energy Particle Precipitation will be hosted by the Finnish Meteorological Institute in Helsinki Finland 28-31 May, 2008. The workshop is focused on the observational as well as modeling studies of atmospheric and ionospheric changes caused by energetic particle precipitation, e.g. solar proton events, relativistic electron precipitation, and auroral electron precipitation. Topics ranging from short-term ionospheric changes to long-term atmospheric changes are welcome, including defining spectra of precipitating particles and the effects on atmospheric dynamics.
Workshop website: http://heppa2008.fmi.fi/
Contact: heppa2008@fmi.fi
The ILWS Newsletter will be released on a quarterly basis. Submissions for and inquiries about this newsletter can be sent to Barbara Thompson at barbara.j.thompson {at} nasa.gov.The current and archived versions of ILWS newsletters will be posted on the ILWS website at http://ilws.gsfc.nasa.gov.
