themis agu press conference: “nasa spacecraft make new discoveries about northern lights”

THEMIS AGU Press Conference:“NASA SPACECRAFT MAKE NEW DISCOVERIES ABOUT NORTHERN

LIGHTS”

Vassilis AngelopoulosTHEMIS Principal Investigator

University of California, Los Angeles

THEMIS Night Side Science

SubstormtoOrbits.mpg or http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003300/a003356/index.html

March 23rd Substorm

POLARmovie.mpg

Mar. 23rd Substorm Raeder Model

David SibeckTHEMIS Project Scientist

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Sun Magnetosphere

Dayside Science

Dayside Simulation

Flux Transfer Events

FluxTransferEvent.avi

Flux Ropes or Boundary Waves?

Let THEMIS-the blindfoldedGreek goddessof impartial justice decide!

Flux ropes Boundary wavesbulge outward bulge one wayin both directions or the other

AEDCB AEDCB

Observation and Interpretation

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B (

nT

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THEMIS-E

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THEMIS-D

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22:00 22:01 22:02 22:03 22:04UT

THEMIS-B

THEMIS May 20, 2007

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THEMIS-D

13.0

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Magnetosphere

Magnetosheath

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12.5

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Sphere

Sheath

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Five THEMIS spacecraft were used to construct cross-sections indicating a flux rope detached from the magnetosphere

Flux Ropes Power the Magnetosphere!

30 kiloVolt battery in spaceFlux ropepumps650,000Amp currentinto the Arctic!

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Jonathan EastwoodTHEMIS researcher

University of California at Berkeley

Computer simulation of a Hot Flow Anomaly

Courtesy: Dr. Nick Omidi Solana Scientific Inc.

The THEMIS ground observatories tracked the pressure

pulse across north America

Bios and Photos

Vassilis Angelopoulos, THEMIS Principal Investigator, University of California, Los Angeles; Prof. Vassilis Angelopoulos is a space physicist with 15 years of experience in magnetospheric research. He has authored and co- authored 65 publications in refereed journals on data analysis, plasma theory and space plasma phenomenology, space technology, space instrumentation and mission analysis and design. His research interests include plasma sheet transport, electromagnetic instabilities in the plasma sheet and its boundary, beam-induced ionospheric low frequency waves, substorm physics, turbulence and self-organized criticality.

David Sibeck, THEMIS Project Scientist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; Dr. David Sibeck has worked at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (1985-2002), NASA Headquarters (2004) and NASA GSFC (2003 - present). He is the author or co-author of over 180 scientific articles on Sun- Solar System Connection Physics. He received the American Geophysical UnionÕs MacElwane award in 1992 and is a fellow of that organization. He is a corresponding editor for EOS, Campaign Coordinator for the National Science FoundationÕs Global Interaction campaign, and Executive Secretary for the International Living With a Star program. His research interests focus on the solar wind-magnetosphere interaction, in particular the bow shock and magnetopause.

Jonathan Eastwood, THEMIS researcher, University of California at Berkeley; Dr. Jonathan Eastwood received his PhD. in Physics in 2003 from Imperial College London, UK, where he worked on the European Space Agency Cluster mission and studied the behavior and properties of the EarthÕs bow shock. Subsequently, he was a National Research Council Resident Research Associate at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and in 2005 moved to the Space Sciences Laboratory at UC Berkeley to work more closely on the THEMIS mission. In his research, he aims to understand the basic science that governs space weather, in particular the physics of shocks and magnetic reconnection. Since 2002 he has been author or co-author on 23 publications studying these subjects.