SPACE AND COSMIC RAY PHYSICS SEMINAR

University of Maryland
Atlantic Building, Room 2400 4:30 PM Monday, October 15, 2007
Coffee, Tea & Snacks 4:15-4:30 PM

Antoinette Galvin
University of New Hampshire

Approach to Solar Minimum: The STEREO Perspective

The Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) was launched by NASA in October 2006. The mission uses two identical spacecraft placed in heliocentric orbit (1 AU) that are drifting apart from each other at a rate of 45 degrees per year. This orbital separation allows the remote imagers on the spacecraft to obtain 3-D images of ourflows and eruptions from the Sun, while the in-situ instruments sample heliospheric material from different solar longitudes as it flows by the spacecraft.

During this first year of the mission, the Sun has been approaching the minimum conditions of the solar activity cycle. The heliosphere during this interval has been dominated by high speed streams from long-lived coronal holes, slow interstream solar wind, and corotating (or stream) interaction regions. These CIRs are also associated with particle acceleration. This talk will present recent remote and in situ observations from STEREO, highlighting the stream interactions, their solar origin and evolution, and associated heliospheric phenomena.

Reference URLs:
http://stereo.sr.unh.edu (UNH PLASTIC homepage)
http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/ (STEREO Science Center)