SolarNews The Electronic Newsletter of the Solar Physics Division American Astronomical Society Volume 2002 Number 19 Stephen R. Walton, editor 3 September 2002 Contents * Yutaka Uchida, 1934-2002 * Chair's Chatter: People in the News and the Harvey Prize * Meeting Announcements o Exploring the X-Ray Universe o Three NOAA Workshops on Future Space Missions o Call for Papers, AGU Meeting Special Session SA04 * Book Announcement Revision: "Kinetic Processes in Solar and Stellar Atmospheres, Second edition" by Arnold O. Benz * Solar Artwork * Editor's Notes ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Yutaka Uchida, 1934-2002 >From Takashi Sakurai >01 Sep 2002 Yutaka Uchida, one of the leading figures of Japan's as well as world's solar and astrophysics community, passed away on August 17, 2002, at the age of 68. He was at his son's wedding ceremony, and made a closing speech and then collapsed. His unexpected death was from cerebral bleeding. He spent most of his research career (1962-1994) at the University of Tokyo (at the Astronomy Department and at Tokyo Astronomical Observatory). After retirement from the University of Tokyo, he moved to the Physics Department, Science University of Tokyo, organizing a group of simulation studies of astrophysical plasmas. There he also continued studies of the sun using data from the Yohkoh satellite: he served as the project scientist of the Yohkoh mission since the beginning of the project (1986). His research activities were quite broad, but perhaps the best known is his interpretation of the Moreton wave as an MHD fast mode shock wave propagating in the corona. This issue has revived recently with the discovery of EIT waves, and he was very happy about it. We are all saddened by the loss of a great scientist. A more complete obituary will appear in Solar Physics. Takashi Sakurai National Astronomical Observatory of Japan ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Chair's Chatter: People in the News and the Harvey Prize >From John Leibacher >September 1, 2002 * SPD Member Miriam A. Forman (SUNY,Stonybrook) has been elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) "for research and teaching in astrophysics, especially solar physics, and for valuable service to professional societies and the government on behalf of science". Felicitations Miriam! * Our collective congratulations to two new Ph.D's in solar physics: Aaron Birch [ Stanford ] whose thesis is entitled "Wave Propagation in the Sun and Interpretation of Helioseismic Data", and Markus Roth [Albert-Ludwigs University in Freiburg i. Br.] whose thesis is entitled "Kopplung globaler Eigenschwingungen der Sonne durch Konvection", which is something like "Coupling between global eigenmodes of the sun due to convection". Best wishes to you both!! * We need to extend a great round of applause and appreciation to Bernie Haisch and Jack Thomas for their many years of service to the community as Scientific Editors of the Astrophysical Journal, and extend our thanks to Tim Bastian for picking up the challenge to carry on their exemplary service. Next time your paths cross, thank them. It pays to be nice to an editor!! * I am pleased to report that we are well on our way to establishing the endowment for the SPD's new Early Career Prize, named in honor of Karen Harvey. We have received a number of very generous personal and corporate contributions, but I want to encourage broad participation, at any financial level, in this important encouragement of new talent in solar physics. We look forward to making the first presentation at the 2003 SPD Meeting at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory, next June. As a reminder, this prize "for a significant contribution to the study of the Sun early in a person's professional career", will be awarded to a person who has not reached 36 years of age, or who has no more than ten years of professional experience since the Ph.D or equivalent degree. Please contact the SPD Chair, John Leibacher (chair@spd.aas.org or 520 318 8305) for further information about making a tax-deductible contribution for the establishment and maintenance of this prize. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Meeting Announcements Exploring the X-Ray Universe >From Louise K Harra >29 Aug 2002 There will be a meeting held at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory (MSSL), University College London, from 5-7 August 2003 called 'Exploring the X-ray Universe.' This meeting will be held in honour of Prof. Len Culhane's 65th birthday. Information on the meeting can be obtained at; http://www.mssl.ucl.ac.uk/www_solar/meeting/main.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Three NOAA Workshops on Future Space Missions >From "Terry Onsager" >30 Aug 2002 The NOAA Space Environment Center will be hosting three workshops to investigate the requirements for future measurements of the space environment. Two of the workshops will apply to the next generation of GOES Spacecraft (GOES R+) to be launched sometime after 2010. These workshops will focus on the solar EUV and energetic particle flux measurements. The third workshop will examine the requirements for solar wind measurements. This new proposed satellite program is called Geostorms and will be a follow on to the NOAA Real-time Solar Wind system on NASA's ACE program. These workshops will be held in Boulder, Colorado on the following dates: * GOES R+ Solar EUV: October 28-29, 2002 * GOES R+ Energetic Particles: October 28-29, 2002 * Geostorms Real-time Solar Wind: October 30-31, 2002 Additional workshop information is available at http://www.sec.noaa.gov/Workshops . Note: The Web site for the Energetic Particles workshop includes a questionnaire that we encourage all those who are interested to submit, including those who can and those who cannot attend the workshop. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Call for Papers, AGU Meeting Special Session SA04 >From "Ernest Hildner" >31 Aug 2002 Extracting Power from Rivers of Data - Data Assimilation into Solar-Terrestrial Models AGU 2002 Fall Meeting Moscone Center San Francisco, California 6-10 December 2002 A special session will be held at the fall AGU meeting on assimilating data into solar-terrestrial models. Speakers that have been invited to this session include: Robert W. Schunk, Tamas Gombosi, an individual from the meteorological data assimilation community, and Ernest Hildner. Contributions from modelers who are planning to utilize multiple data streams (especially to adjust model output during a model run), from observers who believe their measurements can be used synergistically with others', and from those who have experience with relevant techniques to assimilate data into models describing other environments are welcomed. Session Description SA04: As this decade unfolds, we are challenged to use effectively the ever increasing amounts and kinds of solar-terrestrial data now scheduled to become available. How will we incorporate these data into our models to develop deeper and more accurate understanding, description, and prediction of the comprehensive and unified solar-terrestrial environment from Sun to Earth? This session's presentations will address the merits and the technical and conceptual issues of utilizing sparse and incomplete (relative to a model's spatial and temporal mesh spacings) measurements of multiple types to initialize, constrain, validate, and modify-in-progress the solar-terrestrial models of the future. For instance, how does a model "simultaneously" utilize the information contained in contemporaneous and repeated images, radio observations, particle measurements, and in situ plasma and magnetic field observations in a "self-correcting" mode? The expectation is that models which can incorporate many kinds of measurements synergistically and interactively will be more accurate, and provide more insight, than models which use measured values only as initial conditions and as metrics for the success of the model output. Abstracts should be submitted to AGU by 05 September 2002, 1400 UTC through the on-line abstract submission form. Detailed information regarding the Meeting and abstract submission can be found at http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm02top.html . Conveners: Ernest Hildner, ernest.hildner@noaa.gov Richard Behnke, rbehnke@nsf.gov Richard R. Fisher, rfisher@hq.nasa.gov Jeffrey Hughes, hughes@bu.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Book Announcement Revision: "Kinetic Processes in Solar and Stellar Atmospheres, Second edition" by Arnold O. Benz >From "Arnold O. Benz" >30 Aug 2002 Corrigendum: The deadline for the very attractive introductory price has been extended until October 1, 2002. To order the book, download the form from http://www.astro.phys.ethz.ch/papers/benz/PlasmaAstrophysics.ps and send it to Kluwers. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Solar Artwork >From Stephen Walton >3 September 2002 Americans know that U-Haul rental trucks often have artwork on the side depicting various historic or scenic sites in the United States. While on my Labor Day vacation at the Grand Canyon, there was a U-Haul truck parked outside the lodge at which my family and I were staying. On the side of this particular truck was a large painting of a solar prominence, with the legend "NOAA Space Environment Center, Boulder, Colorado." Quite a nice little advertisement for our field, I think. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Editor's Notes Updated December 1, 2001. SolarNews is normally distributed on the first and fifteenth of each month. The SPD Web site can be found at http://umbra.nascom.nasa.gov/aas_spd . The HTML version of SolarNews is at http://www.gong.noao.edu/SolarNews . It contains in-line hyperlinks to all the Web sites and e-mail addresses mentioned in this issue. Plain text back issues can be retrieved via anonymous FTP to spd.aas.org. I encourage SolarNews submissions to be made as LATEX markup. Specific instructions and a LATEX template for submissions can be found on the Web at http://www.gong.noao.edu/SolarNews/SolarNews_submissions.html . Submissions should be e-mailed to editor@spd.aas.org . Please try to keep meeting and workshop announcements to no more than one page (50 to 60 lines of typed text with 72 characters per line), with a Web address for further information. Should you not use LATEX, a descriptive "Subject:" in the e-mail line will help in my markup procedure; that is, "Postdoctoral Position, Lumbago University" is to be preferred to simply "Job Announcement." SolarMail address changes should be made via the Web site at http://spd.aas.org/SolarMail . You can make the change yourself provided your old e-mail address is still active. Enter your SolarMail alias and password at that location. If you do not have a password, a new one can be e-mailed automatically to your old address; then follow the instructions at the Web site. Otherwise, e-mail your new address to both editor and postman@spd.aas.org . Indicate if you wish your new address published in SolarNews. Keep those cards and letters coming.