The Newsletter - Volume 11, Issue 2 18 June 2014 Contents
UCL – DEPARTMENT OF SPACE AND CLIMATE PHYSICS
MULLARD SPACE SCIENCE LABORATORY
The Newsletter - Volume 11, Issue 2
18 June 2014
Covers events between 1 October 2013 and 30 April 2014
Contents
General
Gaia was launched just after 09.00 GMT on 19
December.
We congratulate Natasha Doss (Cluster PEACE
Operations Team) on the birth of her baby.
Visitors
Our cohort of 17 MSc Space Science and
Engineering students, joined by our new PhD students, visited MSSL on 16 October, and were introduced to the breadth of our research activities, to UCL/MSSL space missions’ heritage, current and future projects, in the many disciplines that we pursue.
The students were very impressed by finding out how much is going on at the Lab. and a few managed to meet potential project supervisors as well. Thanks to all involved who helped make the day a success.
We were also pleased to welcome:
Spiro Antiochos - NASA/GSFC.
David Berghmans - Royal Observatory of
Belgium.
Clive Dyer.
Rachel Howe.
Graham Kerr and Hugh Hudson - University of
Glasgow.
Miho Janvier - University of Dundee.
Huw Morgan - University of Aberystwyth, collaborative visit to Lidia van Driel Gesztelyi,
who also gave an excellent seminar on the vast extent of active region loops on the Sun.
Antonia Savcheva - SAO/CfA.
Simon Thomas - University of Reading.
Anthony Yeates - Durham University.
Matsui Yuki visited - University of Tokyo.
New Staff Members
The Space Plasma group welcomes a new member, Zhonghau Yao and returning PEACE ops member Chandrasekhar Reddy Anekallu.
Prizes and Awards
Kim Birkett (Planetary Science) won an Outstanding
Student Paper Award (OSPA) for her presentation at AGU, San Fransisco (Dec. 2013) on cometary sodium tails. Kim was also runner up in the UCL
Graduate School Research Images as Art competition.
Jason Hunt, one of our 3rd year astrophysics PhD students, won 1st prize in the Built Environment,
Engineering Sciences and Mathematical & Physical
Sciences category in the UCL Graduate School
Research Poster Competition 2013/14 for his poster entitled PRIMAL: Mapping the Milky Way from Gaia data.
David Long received the Robert Boyd award for outstanding scientific achievement.
Louise Harra was awarded the RAS Chapman medal for investigations of outstanding merit in solar-terrestrial physics.
Appointments (eg Editorial Boards or
Committees)
Andrew Coates - continues on STFC’s AGP as
Planetary Science chair for the 2014 round
(final year).
David Williams - elected deputy chair of UK
Solar Physics council
Jack Carlyle - elected student representative of
UKSP council
Louise Harra was appointed a reviewer for the
Academy of Science in Finland
Lidia van Driel-Gesztelyi: a) appointed to the ISSI Science
Committee for three years. b) served as member of the AGU
Space Weather Prize Committee. c) appointed a member of the ERC
Consolidator Grants Panel PE9 -
Universe Sciences for 2014.
Sarah Matthews - appointed to the physics and astronomy review panel of the Danish Council for Independent
Research, 2014.
Lucie Green:
joined the NERC Peer Review College.
Grants and Contracts
The space plasma group has received an award from STFC to cover the salary of a
PDRA to undertake studies of the magnetotail with Cluster data. This is a belated award of a post that was proposed but not originally funded in the 2013-16 MSSL Consolidated
Grant submission.
The new post-launch support grant for Hinode-
EIS started on 1 April for a period of 2 years.
Tom Kitching was successful as PI of an STFC urgency proposal for pre-launch science support for Euclid. MSSL has been awarded one 2-year postdoc position to start in
September. Other universities in the proposal were Portsmouth and Durham.
A NERC 3-year grant was awarded in order to
“Determine and understand substorm energy loss and partitioning”.
Tom Kitching has been awarded a Royal
Society International Scientific Seminar, which will be held in June at the Chicheley Hall residence.
The interdisciplinary seminar will be on "Science on the Sphere", focussing on how to achieve the best science using data on in spherical geometries. Twenty world-leading experts from cosmology, astrophysics, geophysics and computer graphics are invited.
The proposal to renew the post-launch support for Hinode submitted to UKSA by Louise Harra/
Khalid Al-Janabi/John Rainnie was successful.The new grant started on 1 April
2014 for 2 years.
Telescope/Satellite Time Awards
Deb Baker:
Proba2/SWAP Guest Investigator at ROB 31
March-11 April.
Tom Kitching:
Awarded VLT-VIMOS time for IFU observations of the core of galaxy cluster A3827, as Co-I of a team coordinated by Richard Massey
(Durham).
Proposals/White papers
David Long - Proposal to Leverhulme Trust:
Predicting the momentum and magnetic field orientation of solar eruptions.
Tom Kitching submitted an ERC starting grant proposal entitled "Gravitational LEnsing in
Exploration of Acceleration and Mass in the
2
universe (GLEAM)".
Andrew Coates and Jonny Rae - Space
Weather Space Radiation Expert Service
Centre, submitted to ESA Space Situational
Awareness programme in March.
ESA announced at the end of Nov 2013 that the science theme “The hot and energetic
Universe” was selected for L2 – the second
Largeclass mission in ESA’s Cosmic Vision science programme, with launch date foreseen in 2028 – and is expected to be pursued with an advanced X-ray observatory, Athena, in which MSSL has science and hardware involvement. A response to ESA's call for mission proposals was submitted by the mid-
April deadline by the Athena team. It appears that there is no other contendent. The ESA
SPC should make a formal decision on the proposal at their June meeting.
Mission Status and Developments
Cassini - In this period we were preparing for the
CAPS-INMS team meeting that was held at MSSL in May; the event will be reported in the next issue
We are working on several scientific areas with student (4), postdoc (1) and staff (3) involvement
(see lists of publications and presentations). Thanks go to the local organising committee for the CAPS-
INMS team meeting: Annie Wellbrock, Suzanne
Winter, Gethyn Lewis, Geraint Jones, Chris Arridge and Andrew Coates and to everyone else involved in making this meeting a success.
Cluster - Cluster operations continue to go to plan.
Andrew Fazakerley and Gill Watson attended the
60 th Cluster Science Operations Working Group at
ESOC in March. A routine annual Progress Meeting at MSSL took place in February with the ESA CAA team, focussed on PEACE data in CAA. Andrew
Fazakerley and Branislav Mihaljcic attended the
19 th CAA Cross Calibration Meeting at ESRIN in
April. Deliveries of CAA PEACE data for 2012 were completed.
CREST-2 The CREST-2 Advanced Hyperspectral
Visible-Infra Red Camera project to extend the wavelength range of the ExoMars PanCam into the short wave IR (0.4-1.6 microns) and provide hyperspectral imaging capabilities started in
October 2013. The AHVIRC team submitted the required 5-month interim report at the end of
February and are now awaiting UKSA approval to begin the 19-month prototype assembly and test phase of the project.
ExoMars - Following an intense period of document preparation, the delta PDR meeting for PanCam was held on 12-14 March at MSSL. Several actions resulted which the team are dealing with. Andrew
Coates (PI) represented PanCam at the ExoMars
Science Working Team meeting in Moscow on 4-6
February and at the first landing site selection meeting at ESAC, Madrid on 26-28 March. A
PanCam science team meeting is planned for 5
June at MSSL .
Hinode - In STFC’s programmatic review, Hinode was allocated a grading of g2, which means 'a project with high potential for excellent science which should be considered via peer review'.
Hinode-EIS continues to perform well.
QB50 Precursor Mission - A significant milestone on the EU FP7 QB50 project was reached in early
2014 with the delivery to the QB50 precursor mission of an Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer
(INMS) from MSSL and a Flux (Phi) Probe
Experiment (FIPEX) from TU Dresden. These instruments are designed to perform in-situ measurements of the ion and neutral particle population in the thermosphere. An EM of these instruments was delivered in January, with the FMs following in March. The precursor mission is a demonstration launch of two QB50 representative
2U CubeSats integrated by ISIS BV to test project specific technologies including the Science Units provided by MSSL, ADCS by University of Surrey and Quadpack deployment system by ISIS BV. The precursor mission from kick off to delivery was completed on an extremely rapid timeline with formal kick off in October 2013 and delivery of integrated CubeSats to launch site in May. The successful delivery and integration of the INMS and
FIPEX payloads required a focussed, fast-track development of the highly miniaturised science payloads on an unprecedented timeline to meet the precursor schedule. The launch of the QB50 precursor satellites, currently scheduled for 19
June, will also be of the first satellites funded through the EU’s FP7 space technology programme. The full QB50 mission will consist of 50
CubeSats launched simultaneously carrying 40+ science units comprising either INMS, FIPEX or multi-Needle Langmuir Probe (m-NLP) supplied by
University of Oslo. The full QB50 mission is planned for launch Q1 2016.
3
Image 1: The INMS precursor FM prior to delivery for integration
Image 2: The two complete QB50 precursor satellites after final integration. The INMS is at top right and FIPEX at top left
Rosetta - Andrew Coates (co-I) and Geraint Jones attended the Rosetta Plasma Consortium team meeting in Paris, 8-10 April.
Solar Orbiter - MSSL staff remain heavily engaged in the management and build of the Solar Orbiter
SWA instrument, for which we are the PI-Institute leading an international consortium. During this period STM models have been delivered for both the HIS and PAS parts of the suite. MSSL staff attended a number of meetings, including the latest in the series of EMC Working Group meetings
(Stevenage, 6-7 Feb), the full Team Meeting of the
SWA consortium (Paris,25-27 Feb), the Science
Working Team (Washington DC, 12-14 March), a meeting of the UKSA Project Management Board to discuss progress (March 24, by telecon) and a meeting to discuss and set up a series of simulations to assess the effects of spacecraft charging on the SWA measurements (25 April,
Noordwijk). Preparations continued for the SWA
CDR this summer.
Venus Express and Mars Express - We continue to work on data from VEx and MEx (see lists; two papers led by MSSL were submitted in this period).
Publications – Refereed
Published
Baker, Brooks, Demoulin, van Driel-Gesztelyi,
Green, Steed, and Carlyle, Plasma Composition in a Sigmoidal Anemone Active Region, ApJ,
778, 69 (2013) doi: 10.1088/0004-
637X/778/1/69.
Bunce, E.J., D.C. Grodent, S.L. Jinks, D.J.
Andrews, S.V. Badman, A.J. Coates, S.W.H.
Cowley, M.K. Dougherty, W.S. Kurth, D.G.
Mitchell and G.Provan, Cassini Nightside
Observations of the Oscillatory Motion of
Saturn’s Northern Auroral Oval, J. Geophys.
Res., in press, DOI: 10.1002/2013JA019527,
Apr 2014.
Byrne, J.P., Long, D.M., Gallagher, P.T.,
Bloomfield, D.S., Maloney, S.A, McAteer, R.T.J.,
Morgan, H., Habbal, S., Improved Methods for determining the kinematics of coronal mass ejections and coronal waves, A&A, 557, A96, doi:10.1051/0004-6361/ 201321223
Carley, Long, Byrne, Zucca, McCauley, Gallagher,
Quasi-periodic acceleration of electrons by a plasmoid-driven shock in the solar atmosphere,,
Nature Physics, doi:10.1038/nphys2767
Carlyle J, Williams DR, van Driel-Gesztelyi L, Innes
DE, Hillier A, Matthews SA,
Investigating the Dynamics and Density
Evolution of Returning Plasma Blobs from the
2011 June 7 Eruption, 2014, Astrophysical
Journal 782, 87, doi: 10.1088/0004-
637X/782/2/87
Carrillo, R. E., J. D. McEwen, and Y. Wiaux.
PURIFY: a new approach to radiointerferometric imaging. Mon. Not. Roy. Astron.
Soc., 439(4):3591-3604, 2014. [ bib | DOI | arXiv
| pdf ]
Chen, P.F., Harra, L.K., Fang, C., Imaging and
Spectroscopic Observations of a Filament
Channel and the Implications for the Nature of
Counter-streamings, 2014, Astrophysical
Journal, 784, 50
Collinson, G.A., D.G. Sibeck, A. Masters, N. Shane,
T.L. Zhang, A. Fedorov, S. Barabash, A.J.
4
Coates, T.E. Moore, J.A. Slavin, V.M. Uritsky, S.
Boardsen, and M. Sarantos, A survey of Hot
Flow Anomalies at Venus, J. Geophys. Res.,
119, DOI: 10.1002/2013JA018863, Feb 2014.
Culhane JL, Brooks DH, van Driel-Gesztelyi L,
Demoulin P, Baker D, DeRosa ML, Mandrini CH,
Zhao L, Zurbuchen TH, Tracking Solar Active
Region Outflow Plasma from its Source to the near-Earth Environment,, 2014, Solar Phys, accepted, doi: 10.1007/s11207-014-0551-5
Doss, N., Fazakerley, A. N., Mihaljčić, B., Lahiff, A.
D., Wilson, R. J., Kataria, D., Rozum, I., Watson,
G., and Bogdanova, Y.: In-flight calibration of the
Cluster PEACE sensors, Geosci. Instrum.
Method. Data Syst., 3, 59-70, doi:10.5194/gi-3-
59-2014, 2014.
Feeney, S.M., D. Marinucci, J. D. McEwen, H. V.
Peiris, B. Wandelt, and V. Cammarota. Sparse inpainting and isotropy, J. Cosmol. Astropart, P.,
2014(1):050, 2014. [ bib | DOI | arXiv | pdf ]
Forsyth, C., A. N. Fazakerley, I. J. Rae, C. E. J.
Watt, K. Murphy, J. A. Wild, T. Karlsson, R.
Mutel, C. J. Owen, R. Ergun, A. Masson, M.
Berthomier, E. Donovan, H. U. Frey, J. Matzka,
C. Stolle, and Y. Zhang (2014), In situ spatiotemporal measurements of the detailed azimuthal substructure of the substorm current wedge, J. Geophys. Res. Space Physics, 119,
927 –946, doi:10.1002/2013JA019302.
Galand, M., A.J. Coates, T.E. Cravens and J.-E.
Wahlund, Titan’s ionosphere, in Titan: Surface,
Atmosphere and Magnetosphere, Cambridge
University Press (Cambridge Planetary Science
Series), eds. I. Mueller-Wodarg, C. Griffith, E.
Lellouch and T. Cravens, p419-458, 978-0-521-
19992-6, Mar 2014.
Goryaev F, Slemzin V, Vainshtein L, Williams DR,
Study of EUV Emission and Properties of a
Coronal Streamer from PROBA2/SWAP,
Hinode/EIS and Mauna Loa Mk4
Observations,2014, Astrophysical Journal 781,
100, doi: 10.1088/0004-637X/781/2/100
Gurgiolo,C., M. L. Goldstein, W. H. Matthaeus,
A. Viñas, and A. N. Fazakerley, Characteristics of the Taylor microscale in the solar wind/foreshock: magnetic field and electron velocity measurements
Ann. Geophys., 31, 2063-2075, 2013
Harvey, David, Thomas D. Kitching, Joyce Noah-
Vanhoucke, Ben Hamner, Tim Salimans
Observing Dark Worlds: A crowdsourcing experiment for dark matter mapping http://arxiv.org/abs/1311.0704 This describes the results of an online crowdsourcing experiment to improve algorithms to measure the positions of clumps dark matter in galaxy clusters.
Hudson, Michael J., Bryan R. Gillis, Jean Coupon,
Hendrik Hildebrandt, Thomas Erben, Catherine
Heymans, Henk Hoekstra, Thomas D. Kitching,
Yannick Mellier, Lance Miller, Ludovic Van
Waerbeke, Christopher Bonnett, Liping Fu,
Konrad Kuijken, Barnaby Rowe, Tim
Schrabback, Elisabetta Semboloni, Edo van
Uitert, Malin Velander CFHTLenS: Co-evolution of galaxies and their dark matter haloes http://arxiv.org/abs/1310.6784 There is a blog post associated with this article here http://lateuniverse.wordpress.com/category/dark
-matter/ There is a blog post associated with this article here http://lateuniverse.wordpress.com/category/dark
-matter/
Jasinski, J.M., C.S. Arridge, L. Lamy, J.S. Leisner,
M.F. Thomsen, D.G. Mitchell, A.J. Coates, A.
Radioti, G.H. Jones, E. Roussos, N.Krupp, D.
Grodent, M.K. Dougherty, and J.H. Waite, Cusp observati on at Saturn’s high latitude magnetosphere by the Cassini spacecraft,
Geophys. Res. Let., 41, doi:
10.1002/2014GL059319, Mar 2014.
Long, D. M., Bloomfield, D. S., Gallagher, P. T.,
Pérez-Suárez, D.,CorPITA: An Automated
Algorithm for the Identification and Analysis of
Coronal “EIT waves”, 2014, Sol. Phys., doi:10.1007/s11207-014-0527-5
Masters, A., L Stawarz, M Fujimoto, S J Schwartz,
N Sergis, M F Thomsen, A Retinò, H Hasegawa,
B Zieger, G R
Masters, A., M. Fujimoto, H. Hasegawa, C.T.
Russell, A.J. Coates, M.K. Dougherty, Can magnetopause reconnection drive Saturn’s magnetosphere? Geophys. Res. Lett., 41, doi:10.1002/2014GL059288, Mar 2014.
Masters, A., N. Achilleos, C.B. Agnord, S.
Campagnola, S. Charnoze, B. Christophe, A. J.
Coates, L.N. Fletcher, G.H. Jones, L. Lamy, F.
Marzari, N. Nettelmann, J. Ruiz, R. Ambrosi, N.
Andre, A. Bhardwaj, J. J. Fortney, C. J. Hansen,
R. Helled, G. Moragas-Klostermeyer, G. Orton,
L. Ray, S. Reynaud, N. Sergis, R. Srama, M.
Volwerk, Neptune and Triton: Essential pieces of the Solar System puzzle, Planet. Space Sci., in press, May 2014.
Masters, A., T.D. Phan, S.V. Badman, H.
Hasegawa, M. Fujimoto, C.T. Russell, A.J.
Coates, M.K. Dougherty, The plasma depletion layer in Saturn’s magnetosheath, J. Geophys.
Res., DOI: 10.1002/2013JA019516, online 27
Jan 2014.
McEwen, J.D., T. Josset, S. M. Feeney, H. V.
Peiris, and A. N. Lasenby. Bayesian analysis of anisotropic cosmologies: Bianchi VIIh and
WMAP. Mon. Not. Roy. Astron. Soc.,
5
436(4):3680-3694,
2013. http://arxiv.org/abs/arXiv:1303.3409
Murphy, K. R., D. M. Miles, C. E. J. Watt, I. J. Rae,
I. R. Mann, and H. U. Frey (2014), Automated determination of auroral breakup during the substorm expansion phase using all-sky imager data, J. Geophys. Res. Space Physics, 119,
1414 –1427, doi:10.1002/2013JA018773.
Pilkington, N.M., N. Achilleos, C.S. Arridge, A.
Masters, N. Sergis, A.J. Coates and M.K.
Dougherty, Polar Confinement of Saturn's
Magnetosphere Revealed by in-situ Cassini
Observations, J. Geophys. Res., in press, DOI:
10.1002/2014JA019774, Apr 2014.
Viola, Massimo, Thomas Kitching, Benjamin
Joachimi, Probability Distributions of Ellipticity http://arxiv.org/abs/1309.7844 This paper derives for the first time the exact analytic probability distribution for ellipticity measured from pixelated noisy data, and applies this to the problem of weak gravitational lensing measurement.
Török, T., Temmer, M., Valori, G., Veronig, A.M., van Driel-Gesztelyi, L.., Vrsnak, B. Initiation of coronal mass ejections by sunspot rotation,
2013, Solar Phys., 286, 453-477. doi:
10.1007/s11207-013-0269-9.
Walsh AP, Taylor MGGT, Fazakerley AN, Forsyth
C, Owen CJ, Rae IJ. Sources of electron pitch angle anisotropy in the magnetotail plasma sheet. Journal of Geophysical Research A:
Space Physics 118(10):6042-6054 Oct 2013
Wahlund, J.-E., R.Modolo, C.Bertucci and
A.Coates, Titan’s magnetospheric and plasma environment, in Titan: Surface, Atmosphere and
Magnetosphere, Cambridge University Press
(Cambridge Planetary Science Series), eds. I.
Mueller-Wodarg, C. Griffith, E. Lellouch and T.
Cravens, p376-418, 978-0-521-19992-6, Mar
2014.
Papers in press
Sutter, P.M., B. D. Wandelt, J. D. McEwen, E. F.
Bunn, A. Karakci, A. Korotkov, P. Timbie, G. S.
Tucker, and L. Zhang. Probabilistic image reconstruction for radio interferometers. Mon.
Not. Roy. Astron. Soc., 438(1):768-778, 2014. [ bib | DOI | arXiv | pdf ]
Wang, R., Nakamura, R., Zhang, T., Du, A.,
Baumjohann, W., Lu, Q., and Fazakerley, A. N.:
Evidence of transient reconnection in the outflow jet of primary reconnection site, Ann. Geophys.,
32, 239-248, doi:10.5194/angeo-32-239-2014,
2014.
Wolz, L., J. D. McEwen, F. B. Abdalla, R. E.
Carrillo, and Y. Wiaux. Revisiting the spread spectrum effect in radio interferometric imaging: a sparse variant of the w-projection algorithm.
Mon. Not. Roy. Astron. Soc., 436(3):1993-2003,
2013. [ bib | DOI | arXiv | pdf ]
Yuan, Z., Y. Xiong, S. Huang, X. Deng, Y. Pang, M.
Zhou, I. Dandouras, J. G. Trotignon, A. N.
Fazakerley, E. Lucek (2014), Cold electron heating by EMIC waves in the plasmaspheric plume with observations of the Cluster satellite,
Geophys. Res. Lett., 41, doi:10.1002/
2014GL059241.
Yuen, P., Y. Gao, A. Griffiths, A. Coates, J-P.
Muller, A. Smith, D. Walton, C. Leff, B. Hancock and D. Shin. ExoMars Rover PanCam:
Autonomy and Computational Intelligence. IEEE
Computational Intelligence Magazine, DOI
10.1109/MCI.2013.2279561, 52-61, 2013. http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=& arnumber=6633045&tag=1 ExoMars PanCam is funded by United Kingdom Space Agency. As a part of the Aurora programme ExoMars rover is scheduled to launch in 2018.
Publications – Non-Refereed
Published
Coates, A.J., Surprises from Saturn - and implications for other environments,
Proceedings of 12th Annual International
Astrophysics Conference ‘Outstanding problems in Heliophysics: from coronal heating to the edge of the heliosphere’, ASP conference series, vol 484, p16-23, ISBN: 978-1-58381-
8522014, 2014.
Forsyth C, Fazakerley AN, Walsh AP, Owen CJ.
Electron matching above the aurora. Astronomy
& Geophysics 54:6.45-6.47-6.45-6.47 Article number 6 2013.
PhDs/MPhils Awarded
Roger Duthie passed his PhD viva on 3 December.
His thesis title was “Multi-point observations of substorm related phenomenon in the Earth’s magnetotail”, and it made extensive use of data from the Cluster and Double Star missions. Roger is currently working at the British Antarctic Survey.
David Shelton passed his viva with minor corrections on 20 May.
Invited Talks and Conferences
Graziella Branduardi-Raymont:
participated in a meeting at ISSI (International
Space Science Institute, Bern) on 21-23
October to discuss material and plans for a review paper on observations and modelling of the solar wind interaction with solar system bodies. Megan (our new PhD student, working with Graziella on high-resolution spectroscopy of AGN) attended another meeting at ISSI (9-13
6
December), with Graziella Skype-ing in, to discuss and plan the analysis of data from a multi-wavelength observing campaign of the
Seyfert galaxy NGC5548.
Jack Carlyle:
Investigating the Dynamics and Density
Evolution of Returning Plasma Blobs from the
2011 June 7 Eruption, eHEROES Consortium,
Davos, 11 March.
Andrew Coates:
Invited talk at the AGU Chapman conference on Magnetosphere-Ionosphere Coupling in the
Solar System, Yosemite National Park, CA, 9-
14 Feb ‘Plasma measurements at nonmagnetic solar system objects’.
Len Culhane:
Talk at Hinode 7 meeting on active region upflow plasma and its possible contribution to the solar wind. Nov. 2013.
Lidia van Driel Gesztelyi:
Invited talk on the solar cycle in the corona at the ISSI Workshop “The solar activity cycle:
Physical causes and consequences” 11-15 Nov
2013, Bern, Switzerland.
Colin Forsyth:
Invited s eminar on Cluster’s observations in the auroral acceleration region to the space and astronomy groups at RAL Space on 12
February.
Colin Forsyth, Jonny Rae, Alice Foster, Nadine
Kalmoni, and Louise Cooper:
Attended the Hot Spring MIST conference in
Bath, the first multi-day MIST meeting since
2005. Colin, Jonny and Alice gave talks on
‘Cluster’s observations of the substorm current wedge’, ‘Determining pre-onset substorm field topology from multi-point magnetospheric and ground based measurements’ and ‘Small Scale
Magnetic Reconnection in the So lar Wind’ respectively.
Colin Forsyth and Jonny Rae:
Attended the final ECLAT workshop held at the
University of Leicester on 20-22 January. Colin gave a talk on his recent work examining the substorm current wedge with Cluster.
Louise Harra:
Talk at Hinode 7 meeting in Takayama, Japan on preflare triggers - Nov 2013.
Invited talk at the Japanese embassy on solar activity. Dec 2013.
Organized the UK solar mission forum held in
December at UCL (with Richard Harrison).
Space weather - the impact of CMEs and Flares
- Imperial Symposium - 12 Feb.
Solar-stellar flares, ISSI, 24 Feb.
Remote sensing of the solar wind, ISSI, 3
March.
Spectroscopy of solar activity - Queens
University, 2 April.
Tom Kitching:
lectured at the International Cosmology school at Tonale, Italy in December. There is a blog post associated with this here http://lateuniverse.wordpress.com/category/tea ching/
Jason McEwen:
keynote titled "Cosmological image processing" at the Image and Vision Computing NZ (IVCNZ)
2013 conference.
Tom Kitching and Jason McEwen:
will host a Royal Society International Scientific
Seminar on "Science on the Sphere" in July.
David Long:
The Nature of Coronal Bright Fronts, ISSI, 20-
24 Jan.
Seismology of the Solar Corona using
SDO/AIA, RAL, 30 Jan.
Sarah Matthews:
Invited talk at the RAS Specialist Discussion
Meeting: Space weather: a dialogue between scientists and forecasters, ‘The
Carrington Event - once in a lifetime?’
(Organized by Deb Baker, Lucie Green,
Lidia van Driel-Gesztelyi, and Steve Milan on 13 Dec. 2013).
Chris Owen:
Invited to participate in the India-UK Research
Seminars Meeting on “Plasma Processes in the
Solar and Space Plasma at Diverse Spatio-
Temporal Scales: Upcoming Challenges in the
Science and Instrumentation” that took place
26-28 March, at ARIES, Nainital, India. He gave a presentation on the upcoming scientific opportunities associated with Solar Orbiter.
Peter Yuen:
For the JSPS Short Term Invitation Fellowship for Solar-C mission, details can be found at
URL http://www.jsps.org/case_studies/2014/01/drpeter-yuen-university-college-london.html
7
Planetary science group members attended RAS
MIST meeting, 29 Nov. 2013. Two talks were presented:
Felici, M., C.S. Arridge, A.J. Coates, M.K.
Dougherty, Evidence for the ionospheric outflow in Saturn’s magnetotail.
Wellbrock, A., A.J. Coates, G.H. Jones, G.R.
Lewis, J.H. Waite, Density profiles of different negative ions mass groups at Titan observed by Cassini's CAPS electron spectrometer.
Several planetary group members attended AGU in
San Fransisco, making 3 (+CSA, GHJ) presentations and contributing to several others.
Kimberley S. Birkett; Geraint H. Jones; Andrew
J. Coates, Modelling Cometary Sodium Tails,
P31A-1783.
Tom Nordheim; Geraint H. Jones; Elias
Roussos; Andrew J. Coates, Modelling of moon surface charging in the Saturn system – comparison with Cassini observations at Rhea and Hyperion, SM21B-2188.
Anne Wellbrock; Andrew J. Coates; Geraint H.
Jones; Jack H. Waite, Density profiles of different negative ion mass groups at Titan as observed by Cassini’s CAPS electron spectrometer, P53C-1883.
Rudy A. Frahm; Heather A. Elliott; John D.
Winningham; James R. Sharber; Craig E.
DeForest; Timothy A. Howard; Esa J. Kallio;
Susan McKenna-Lawlor; Firdevs Duru; David
D. Morgan; Andrew J. Coates; Dusan Odstrcil;
Rickard N. Lundin; Yoshifumi Futaana;
Stanislav V. Barabash, Asymmetry of the Mars
Ionosphere Boundary Altitude during a Solar
Energetic Particle Event, P21A-1712.
Masaki Fujimoto; Adam Masters; Tai-Duc Phan;
Hiroshi Hasegawa; Sarah V. Badman;
Christopher T. Russell; Andrew J. Coates;
Michele K. Dougherty, The plasma depletion layer in Saturn’s magnetosheath, SM21A-2141.
Nathan M. Pilkington; Nicholas A. Achilleos;
Christopher S. Arridge; Adam Masters; Nick
Sergis; Andrew J. Coates; Michele K.
Dougherty, A Global Model of Saturn's
Magnetopause, SM21A-2148.
Philippe Garnier; Jan-Erik Wahlund; Madeleine
Holmberg; Gethyn Lewis; Patricia Schippers;
Michelle F. Thomsen; Sandrine Rochel
Grimald; Donald A. Gurnett; Andrew J. Coates;
Iannis S. Dandouras; Jack H. Waite, The influence of energetic electrons on the Cassini langmuir probe at Saturn : deriving large electron temperatures and small electron densities, SM21A-2152.
Ronan Modolo; Norberto Romanelli; Patrick
Canu; Andrew J. Coates; Jean-Jacques
Berthelier; Cesar Bertucci; Francois Leblanc;
Rodrigue Piberne; Niklas J. Edberg; William S.
Kurth; Donald A. Gurnett; Jan-Erik Wahlund,
Titan’s induced magnetosphere from plasma wave, particle data and magnetometer observations, SM21B-2192.
Howard T. Smith; Abigail M. Rymer; Robert E.
Johnson; Gethyn Lewis; Andrew J. Coates;
Donald G. Mitchell; David T. Young, Possible evidence a Titan-generated Nitrogen Torus in
Saturn's Magnetosphere (Invited), P51I-08.
Members of both the Planetary Group and the
Plasma Physics Group gave presentations at the
EGU General Assembly 2014, Vienna, 27 Apr-2
May:
Andrew Fazakerley gave a talk on ‘The Alfven
Mission : A possible ESA M4 Mission
Candidate’ and also presented a poster on
‘Cluster observations of electron and ion holes in th e Auroral Acceleration Region.’
Regoli, Leonardo, Geraint Jones, Norbert
Krupp, Andrew Coates, Elias Roussos, Anna
Kotova, and Moritz Feyerabend, Tracing of energetic particles in the vicinity of Titan.
Wellbrock, Anne, Andrew J. Coates, Geraint H.
Jones, Tom A. Nordheim, Gethyn R. Lewis, and
J. Hunter Waite, Observations of negative ions at Titan and other objects in the Saturn system using the Cassini CAPS Electron Spectrometer
(ELS).
Szegö, Karoly, Zoltan Dobe, Zsofia Bebesi,
Andrew Coates, Lajos Foldy, Markus Fraenz,
Andrea Opitz, and Daniel Vech, Ion heating near the ion composition boundary at Venus.
Garnier, Philippe, Jan-Erik Wahlund, Mika
Holmberg, Geraint Lewis, Patricia Schippers,
Sandrine Rochel Grimald, Donald Gurnett,
Andrew Coates, Iannis Dandouras, and Hunter
Waite, Deriving large electron temperatures and small electron densities with the Cassini
Langmuir probe at Saturn.
Ali Varsani and Kirthika Mohan presented posters on ‘Microscale dynamics within Kelvin-
Helmholtz waves’ and ‘Observation of ion bands in the inner magnetosphere’ respectively.
The planetary group were involved in two presentations at 45th Lunar and Planetary Science
Conference, held 17-21 March:
Palumbo, P.; Jaumann, R.; Cremonese, G.;
Hoffmann, H.; Debei, S.; Della Corte, V.;
Holland, A.; Lara, L. M.; Castro, J. M.; Herranz,
M.; Koncz, A.; Leese, M.; Lichopoj, A.; Magrin,
D.; Martinez-Navajas, I.; Mazzotta Epifani, E.;
8
Michaelis, H.; Ragazzoni, R.; Roatsch, T.;
Rodriguez, E.; Schipani, P.; Schmitz, N.;
Zaccariotto, M.; Zusi, M.; Adriani, A.;
Aharonson, O.; Bell, J.; Bourgeois, O.; Capria,
M. T.; Coates, A.; Coustenis, A.; Di Achille, G.;
Forlani, G.; van Gasselt, S.; Groussin, O.;
Gwinner, K.; Haruyama, J.; Hauber, E.;
Hiesinger, H.; Langevin, Y.; Lopes, R.;
Marinangeli, L.; Markiewicz, W.; Marzari, F.;
Massironi, M.; Mehall, G.; Mitri, G.; Mottola, S.;
Oberst, J.; Patel, M.; Pelizzo, M. G.; Popa, C.;
Poulet, F.; Preusker, F.; Rodrigo, R.;
Schneider, N.; Simon-Miller, A.; Stephan, K.;
Takahashi, Y.; Tosi, F.; Vincendon, M.;
Wagner, JANUS: The Visible Camera Onboard the ESA JUICE Mission to the Jovian System,.
LPI Contribution No. 1777, p.2094.
Li, R.; Ostrowski, S.; Li, D.; Paar, G.; Coates,
A.; Muller, J. P.; Griffiths, A.; Oberst, J., ESA
ExoMars Rover PanCam: Pre-Launch
Localization Modeling and Accuracy
Assessment, presented at 45th Lunar and
Planetary Science Conference, LPI
Contribution No. 1777, p.1926.
RAS Specialist Discussion Meeting on “Field-
Aligned Particle Acceleration in Space Plasmas”
(11 Oct. 2013)
Colin Forsyth and Jonathan Rae organised the first RAS Specialist Discussion Meeting of the
2013-14 programme, held at the RAS on 11 th
October 2013. The meeting explored the variety of particle acceleration processes and effects in space plasmas, with talks ranging from acceleration above the aurora and on the Sun to acceleration in laboratory plasmas.
18 th Cross Calibration Workshop (23 –25 Oct. 2013)
Andrew Fazakerley, Branislav Mihaljčić and
Natasha. Doss went to the 18th Cross-
Calibration Workshop in Abingdon, Oxfordshire between 23-25 October 2013. Branislav
Mihaljčić presented a talk on Double Star Active
Archive Status and Progress and Natasha Doss presented a talk on Cluster Active Archive
Status.
Solar Orbiter Mission Talk (27 Nov. 2013)
Chris Owen gave a lecture on the Solar Orbiter mission and provided responses during the post-dinner Q&A session on November 27 at the Reform Club on Pall Mall in London
(previously noteworthy as the start and finish point for Phileas Fogg in the 1873 Jules Verne novel Around the World in Eighty Days ).
AGU Fall Meeting 2013, San Francisco, 9-13 Dec.
Andrew Fazakerley, Jonathan Rae and Colin
Forsyth attended. Andrew gave a talk on new
Cluster experiments to detect ion and electron phase space holes above the aurora. Colin gave an invited talk on the small-scale structure of the substorm current wedge and a poster on particle acceleration above the aurora observed by Cluster. Jonny gave a talk on determining the magnetotail location of substorm onset by comparing resonance frequencies on the ground and in space.
7th QB50 Workshop:
The 7th QB50 Workshop was held on 28-29
Jan. at the Von Karman Institute in Brussels,
Belgium. Ben Taylor and Rahil Chaudery attended and presented the Ion and Neutral
Mass Spectrometer (INMS) to worldwide
CubeSat providers to the QB50 project. The other two QB50 science units which are managed by MSSL were also presented in splinter sessions: The Flux (Phi) Probe
Experiment (FIPEX) provided by TU Dresden and the multi Needle Langmuir Probe (m-NLP) provided by University of Oslo.
The 1 st ESA-CAS workshop ”Planning for a joint scientific space mission - Chinese Academy of
Sciences (CAS) - European Space Agency (ESA)” in February in Chengdu (China):
Attended by Jonny Rae and Andrew Fazakerley who presented a poster entitled “AurEx: A lowaltitude multi-spacecraft mission to determine spatial and temporal scales of magnetosphereionosphere coupling.”
Outreach
Talks were given by:
Deb Baker:
Solar physics for A-level students at City of
London Freemen’s School.
Kim Birkett:
'Comets and Curry' open evening at The
Observatory Science Centre Herstmonceux.
Colin Forsyth:
“Our volatile Sun: Explosions, Ejections and
Space Weather ” at the British Astronomical
Association meeting in Milton Keynes on “Stars!
Eclipses and Explosions”.
National Space Centre careers day for A-level students on 27 January.
Louise Harra:
Careers in space science at Banbridge
Academy.
Presidency of the physics and astronomy
9
section of the British Science Festival.
Andrew Coates:
Talk on ‘Mars exploration – and the ExoMars mission’ at Federation of Astronomical
Societies Convention, Institute of Astronomy,
Cambridge, 19 Oct 2013.
Talk “Europe goes to Mars” at Croydon Natural
History & Scientific Society, 18 Nov. 2013.
Talk “Saturn, Titan and Enceladus: recent results from Cassini” at Andover astronomical society, 21 Nov. 2013.
Space lectures (2) at Winchester Science
Centre on Mars Exploration and the ExoMars mission, 8 Jan.
‘Mars Exploration and the ExoMars mission’, at
Kings School, Guildford, 27 Feb .
‘Exploring Mars’ at Sir William Borlase's
Grammar School, Marlow, Buckinghamshire, 3
March.
Voyager and Cassini at SuperCollider event (in collaboration with Fat Possum and Lefse
Records) celebrating the release (on Record
Store day, 19 April 2014) of The Space Project
14 track box set, 15 April, at Ace Hotel London,
Shoreditch.
It has been noted that posters advertising the economic virtues of the town of Stevenage on the
London Underground escalators at Euston Station include one, which features an artists impression of the Solar Orbiter spacecraft!
Media Broadcasts and Features
Andrew Coates:
Interview for BBC radio 4 6pm and midnight news, on Titan’s hydrocarbon-rich atmosphere,
1 October 2013
Interview on ExoMars and life beyond Earth, for
"FORMAT TV", REN TV channel (Russia), documentary on “The Earth and Space”, 4
October 2013.
Mentioned in Guardian on SAFER trial and
ExoMars mission, 15 Oct 2013
Quoted in Space:UK (Winter 2013) on SAFER trials
Interview for BBC News on Mars exploration and India and China space programmes, appeared 20 October 2013.
Interview for BBC TV news on Mars exploration and India and China space programmes, 23
October 2013 (used 5 Nov BBC World).
Interview on Sky News on Indian Mars Orbiter
Mission and Mars exploration (mentioned
ExoMars), 3 Nov 2013.
Interviews for BBC News online, BBC1
Newsround, BBC World TV Impact Asia, BBC
World Service World Business Report, BBC
World Service World Have Your Say, Sky
News, on Indian mission to Mars, 5 November
2013 – mentioned ExoMars
Interview for Space Boffins podcast on SAFER trial and ExoMars mission, appeared 13 Nov
2013
Interviews for BBC News on NASA Maven mission, appeared online 14 Nov 2013.
Info for The Times on NASA Maven mission
(also mentioned MEx, ExoMars), 15 Nov 2013
Interviews for BBC1 1 & 10 o’clock news, Sky
News, BBC World and BBC World Service
Newshour, on NASA Maven mission and Mars exploration, 18 Nov 2013.
Interview on BBC World Service (Newsday programme) on Earth’s magnetic field and the
ESA Swarm mission, 22 November 2013.
Interviews for the Metro, BBC Surrey and BBC
News Channel on comet Ison, 28 Nov 2013.
Interview on Voice of Russia on the Rosetta mission, 10 December 2013.
Info for BBC News (and second article) on
Chinese moon landing, 14-15 December 2013.
Interview on Sky News, 15 December 2013, on
Chinese moon landing (mentioned ExoMars also).
Interviews on BBC World Service, Weekend programme, BBC radio 5 live, BCFM BBC
Radio Surrey, BBC Radio Scotland on Rosetta mission, 20-26 Jan.
Interview for BBC World Service on Chinese
Jade Rabbit rover problems, 27 Jan.
Interview on observation of an inner Oort cloud object for The Times, 27 March.
Interview on ExoMars and PanCam for BBC
News, 24 March, used 28 March Online, BBC 1
Breakfast, BBC 1 O’clock News and BBC
World.
Interview on Enceladus ocean, BBC News online, BBC1 10 O’clock News, BBC News
Channel and online, 3 April.
Press releases on the ExoMars landing site selection workshop in March, quoting Andrew
Coates, were featured on the UCL and MSSL websites.
Lucie Green:
Sky at Night monthly astronomy programme
Inside Science on BBC Radio 4
Richard Bacon Show on BBC5Live
BBC World Service
Tom Kitching and Jason McEwen:
Several new posts are available on the MSSL astro group blog page and Tom and Jason ’s blog .
10
Other News Items/Activities
Ion beam facility:
The In-situ Detector Systems group has successfully installed an ion beam facility in the
MSSL clean room. This equipment is capable of producing a beam of ions with energies up to 40 kV and directing that beam onto a small target. The ion beam uses a Duoplasmatron source capable of producing positive and negatively charged ions using most ion species. Together with the wide area electron source already installed, the Low Energy
Plasma Instrument Calibration (LEPIC) facility is now significantly closer to simulating the space plasma environment that the in-situ detectors are designed to work in. The ion beam has already been used successfully in the testing of the QB50
Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer for the precursor flight opportunity.
Image 3: The ion beam
Planetary Science group:
We continue to prepare for the 6th Alfven
Conference hosted by the Planetary Science Group at UCL. The meeting is convened by Andrew
Coates supported by a Local Organising committee
(co-chair Anne Wellbrock and including several
UCL-MSSL staff and students) and an international
Scientific Organising committee. The theme is
Plasma interaction with solar system objects:
Anticipating Rosetta, Maven and Mars Orbiter
Mission, 7-11 July. Several meetings of the Local
Organizing committee took place in this period and the meeting has been well supported by the international community.
The main topics are comets, Mars, Venus, outer planet moons and Earth's moon - especially common processes with comets, and reviewing current knowledge prior to the arrival of the new missions. We will r eview mankind’s current knowledge of cometary plasma interactions, as well as relevant processes at Mars, Venus, and outer and inner solar system moons. Associated with the conference, a public talk will be given on Tuesday
8th July at UCL, on The Rosetta Story: A Comet, an amazing spacecraft and their journey around the
Sun, by Dr Matt Taylor, ESA Rosetta project scientist.
Thanks to the Alfven 6 local organising committee:
Anne Wellbrock (co-chair), Geraint Jones, Chris
Arridge, Rosalind Medland, Gethyn Lewis,
Leonardo Regoli, Marianna Felici, Jamie Jasinski,
Nick Achilleos, Tom Nordheim, William Dunn,
Kimberley Birkett, Yudish Ramanjooloo, Andrew
Coates (convener).
Chris Owen attended a meeting of the Editorial
Board for Annales Geophysicae in Vienna during the week of the EGU (30 Apr.). Discussions on the journals open access policies and possible major changes to its policies for refereeing of submitted manuscripts were discussed.
Sarah Matthews was guest speaker and presented the prizes at Burgess Hill School presentation evening.
ESA Solar System and Exploration Working Group
Andrew Fazakerley participated in a meeting of the
ESA Solar System and Exploration Working Group in Madrid on 21-22 Oct, as well as a follow-up meeting of the UK Space Agency Science
Programme Advisory Committee in London on 14
Nov.
Cluster Science Operations Working Group (5-6
Nov. 2013).
Andrew Fazakerley participated in a meeting of the Cluster Science Operations Working
Group in Paris on 5-6 Nov., and a related meeting concerned with exploitation of data from the Inner
Magnetosphere Campaign of Summer 2013.
Next Issue
The next issue of The Newsletter (Volume 11, Issue
3) will be published in August 2014. This will cover activities from 1 May 2014 to 31 July 2014.
11
