Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771
ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM
Monday, April 4, 2011 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium
W. Dean Pesnell and Phillip Chamberlin
"The Solar Dynamics Observatory: Your Eye on the Sun"
ABSTRACT -- The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) SDO launched on February 11, 2010, 10:23 am EST on an Atlas V from SLC 41 at Cape Canaveral. SDO's main goal is to understand the solar variations that influence life on Earth and humanity's technological systems. These variations are caused by the solar magnetic field. The SDO science investigations will determine how the Sun's magnetic field is generated and structured, how this stored magnetic energy is released into the heliosphere as the solar wind, energetic particles, and variations in the solar irradiance. Since launch the SDO science instruments (AIA, EVE, and HMI), have been sending data to our dedicated Ka-band ground station. We have been busy making the images available to the public and analyzing science data. Our second EVE calibration rocket was launched March 23. We will discuss some of the highlights of the first year of SDO in space, including the new, groundbreaking science results in active region emergence, a new late-phase observed in solar flares, the first observations of Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities in the Sun, and insights into a possible source of coronal heating.
SPEAKER -- W. Dean Pesnell is the Project Scientist of the Solar Dynamics Observatory. He has published 80 papers in a variety of research areas, including variable stars, the Sun-Earth connection, quantum mechanics, and meteors in planetary atmospheres. He received his Ph.D. in 1983 from the University of Florida. After a post-doc at the University of Colorado and a visiting professorship at New Mexico State University, Dr. Pesnell came to Goddard as a contractor in 1990. He formed Nomad Research, Inc. in 1995 to do independent scientific research. One research contract was to design the Living With a Star missions to study the response of the Earth to solar activity. He started work on SDO in 2004 and became the Project Scientist in 2005. He has lectured extensively on solar activity, including the recently ended minimum in solar activity.
Phillip Chamberlin is Deputy Project Scientist of the Solar Dynamics Observatory. His research focuses primarily on measuring and modeling the solar X-ray and ultraviolet irradiance. Dr. Chamberlin has been involved with six sounding rocket payloads and continues to be involved with the TIMED SEE and SDO EVE data analysis, as well as the development of the GOES-R EXIS instruments (XRS and EUVS) and the MAVEN LPW-EUV instrument. Dr. Chamberlin has also participated in many Education and Public Outreach (EPO) opportunities and is a collaborator on the NASA Heliophysics Education and Public Outreach Forum.