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CME Blast and subsequent impact on Earth, Credit: SOHO/LASCO/EIT (ESA & NASA), Steele Hill

Published: 25 October 2024

Webinar with Vassilis Angelopoulos
(UCLA, Los Angeles, USA)

recorded October 24, 2024

Game Changers Online Seminar

Space Weather

Game Changers Webinar

Nanosatellite

Earth Observation

Plasma Acceleration in Near-Earth Space

Webinar with Vassilis Angelopoulos
(UCLA, Los Angeles, USA)

Near-Earth space is filled with energetic ions and electrons of multi-MeV energy, which can damage sensitive satellite components and harm humans in space. The energy comes from the Sun’s outbursts of plasmas, the dynamic solar wind, but it is focused and amplified in Earth’s magnetized space environment, the magnetosphere. The tug of war between the solar wind and our magnetized planet drives the dynamic auroras, Earth’s radiation belts, and affects our atmosphere. Space weather is a major field of study for space agencies around the world. Modeling and predicting radiation particle fluxes is still in its infancy.

Recorded Webinar

Abstract

We have recently learned that like their close-kin, substorms, the large space storms are powered by magnetotail reconnection outflows. These are localized (1-2 Earth radii East-West and 1000km North-South) and thus highly elusive. They are initiated by reconnection but deposit their energy very close to Earth, near the geosynchronous region. Multi-satellite investigations are required to make progress on how these convert the tail magnetic energy to heat and how they drive field aligned currents to heat the upper atmosphere. Like our atmosphere, whose study was revolutionized by the advent of telegraphy, permitting near-real time observations of atmospheric pressure fronts, space environment is equally dynamic requiring dozens to hundreds of space buoys to first understand and then monitor space plasma interactions across multiple scales.
Today this appears feasible thanks to a new generation of technologies maturing through CubeSat programs around the world. This represents a new way of conducting high-quality space science, while advancing new space technologies. It also represents a new educational model in space science and engineering, emphasizing critical thinking, responsibility and teamwork, preparing well our future explorers.

About the Speaker

Vassilis Angelopoulos obtained his B.S. from the U. of Thessaloniki, Greece, and earned a Ph.D. at UCLA in 1993. After appointments at JHU/APL, NASA/JPL and UCB/SSL, he has been at UCLA since 2007. He is the PI of the NASA/MIDEX THEMIS and ARTEMIS missions (a 5 satellite constellation launched in 2007 and still in operation) and of NASA/NSF ELFIN, a dual CubeSat mission launched in 2018 and successfully operated through its atmospheric re-entry in 2022. He studies how particles are accelerated in Earth’s magnetosphere, how the upper atmosphere and ionosphere respond to space currents, and how the lunar environment is affected by its interaction with the solar wind. He currently serves as the US representative to COSPAR and a member of its bureau. He has been honored with the 2024 NASA Outstanding Public Leadership Medal, and UCLA’s 2020 Inaugural Physical Sciences Centennial Mentorship Award. He has co-authored 800 publications. More that 400 undergraduates were trained under his mentorship during the ELFIN CubeSat program.

History

Starting in the summer of 2020, the International Space Science Institute has organised the weekly on-line seminar series called “Game Changers”. After six series of weekly talks on the themes of “Missions that Changed the Game in Solar System, Astrophysics and Earth Sciences” , “Ideas and Findings about the Solar System, the Universe and our Terrestrial Environment”, “Habitability – From Cosmic to Microbial Scales”, “Viewing Earth from Space – the Changing Environment and Climate of our Planet”, and “Captivating Cosmology: From the Big Bang to Tomorrow” and the topic “Space Environmental Hazards: Mitigation and Prediction”, the webinar series continues on a monthly basis.

A Spiral Amongst Thousands

Credits ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Martel