Dr. Angelos Vourlidas
Johns Hopkins University / APL
Johns Hopkins University / APL
14:00, Observatory Lab.
Abstract:
Sunlight
feeds life on Earth while the solar wind buffets our magnetosphere,
sometimes violently. It is no surprise that solar variability is a
primary societal concern and subject of intense scientific research. For
decades, however, progress on understanding the Sun-Earth connection
has been hampered by the 'disconnected' nature of the observations;
remote sensing of the near-Sun corona, in-situ sampling at Earth. The
evolution of the solar wind and its more energetic transients in the
inner heliosphere was accessible only through modelling. While the
STEREO mission made great strides since 2007, the mechanisms of the
generation and early evolution of the solar wind still elude us. This is
about to change thanks to two unprecedented space missions, Solar Probe
Plus (SPP) and Solar Orbiter, to be launched in 2018 and 2019,
respectively. These missions are designed to attack the solar wind
problem head-on with comprehensive suites of remote sensing and in-situ
instruments. In this talk, I introduce the capabilities and science
objectives of the SPP and SO missions and discuss the exciting science
prospects in solar physics research in the next 10 years. SPP will be
the first spacecraft to enter the atmosphere of a star, reaching within 6
million km from the solar surface. Solar Orbiter will be the first
mission to image the Sun from outside the ecliptic plane. The
instruments will tie together in-situ sampling and high contrast imaging
from ‘within’ the solar corona with high resolution observations from
space and ground. A new era in solar and space physics awaits us.
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