The Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies (DIAS) will be hosting a seminar by Jesper Gjerloev, Sam Yee, and the entire EZIE Team on 2 June at 3pm (Dublin). Jesper will give an overview of the EZIE mission to study Earth's auroral electrojets. The title and abstract are below; the Zoom link can be found on the MIST mailing list.
EZIE will image the magnetic signature of the ionospheric electrojets using the Zeeman splitting of the O2 thermal emissions originating from around 80km altitude. EZIE’s 3 smallsats each carry a microwave electrojet magnetogram (MEM) instrument for multipoint vector magnetic field measurements proximate to the source current thereby revealing the structure and evolution of the electrojets. In situ measurements of the electrojet region have proved elusive because the altitudes are too high for balloons and too low for satellites. EZIE’s multi-point measurements will provide unprecedented 2D current maps allowing for a separation of spatial and temporal variations of the electrojets.
EZIE will address two primary science questions that have remained elusive because of observation limitations:
EZIE’s science augmentation characterizes the spatiotemporal structure of equatorial electrojets and explores the physical mechanisms of their generation, resulting in EZIE’s third science question:
The presentation will provide an overview of the mission with a focus on science and implementation. We will show results from comprehensive and realistic end-to-end simulations to illustrate the unprecedented observational capabilities of the EZIE mission.
This year’s STFC summer school is provisionally planned to be held in person at Durham University from 22–27 August. However, if the government’s easing of restrictions between now and then changes so that an in-person meeting is not deemed sensible, then the school will instead be held online. The final decision on this will be made by 30 June.
For more information, visit the website for the summer school.
The summer school is intended as an introduction to solar physics and solar-terrestrial interactions, aimed at PhD students starting in Autumn 2021. The five-day course will consist of a number of lectures delivered by experts from across the UK. The lectures will cover a range of topics, from a general introduction to Plasma Physics to more specialised areas such as magnetic topology.
The preliminary programme is currently available. In addition to the core lectures there will be a careers Q&A, a session on surviving a PhD, an interactive introduction to Python/SunPy and a conference dinner on the Thursday evening. Accommodation for students during the week will be in one of Durham's colleges.
A white paper called "Quo vadis, European space weather community" has been published in J. Space Weather Space Clim. which outlines plans for the creation of an organisation to represent the European space weather community.
Since it was published, an online event of the same name was organised on 17 March 2021. A “Quo Vadis Interim Board” was then set up, to establish a mechanism for this discussion, which will go on until June 21st.
The Interim Board is composed of volunteers from the community in Europe. Its role is to coordinate the efforts so that the space weather (and including space climate) European community can:
To reach this goal, the Interim Board is inviting anyone interested in and outside Europe to join the “Quo Vadis European Space Weather Community ” discussion forum.
Eligible European Space Weather Community members should register to the “Electoral Census” to be able to vote in June for the final choice of organisation.
This effort will be achieved through different actions indicated on the Quo Vadis webpage and special Slack workspace.