Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771

ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM

Monday, February 5, 2007 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium

Alexei A. Pevtsov

"HINODE: re-writing our textbooks on the sun and its activity"

ABSTRACT -- Hinode (formerly Solar-B) is a Japanese-led international mission and is the second mission in the Solar Terrestrial Probes program line. Hinode, "Sunrise" in Japanese, was launched on 23 September 2006 from Uchinoura Space Center. The mission's three primary instruments: Solar Optical Telescope, X-ray Telescope, and the Extreme-Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer were developed with significant contribution from NASA. The instruments will be used to study the generation, evolution, and eruption of solar magnetic fields, and the effects of magnetic fields on solar atmosphere and the interplanetary-space environment. First "engineering" images taken during the calibration and the final checkout leave no doubt that Hinode observations will revolutionize the knowledge of our nearest and the most important star, the Sun. In this talk, I will describe the Hinode and its main instruments and summarize the science that this mission will address.

SPEAKER -- Alexei Pevtsov received his PhD from the Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics of Russian Academy of Sciences. Following postdoctoral appointment at the Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii, he joined the research faculty at Montana State University in the Department of Physics. In 2000, he accepted a position of Associate Astronomer with the National Solar Observatory at Sacramento Peak. Since late 2005, he has served as Solar Physics Discipline Scientist at NASA Headquarters and the Program Scientist for Hinode and the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). His main scientific research areas include solar magnetic fields, coronal heating, sunspots and active regions, solar eruptive phenomena, space weather, and vector polarimetry.