Graphics Technology in Space Applications (GTSA 1989)

This document represents the proceedings of the Graphics Technology in Space Applications, which was held at NASA Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center on April 12 to 14, 1989 in Houston, Texas. The papers included in these proceedings were published in general as received from the authors with minimum modifications and editing. Information contained in the individual papers is not to be construed as being officially endorsed by NASA

GSFC Heliophysics Science Division FY2010 Annual Report

This report is intended to record and communicate to our colleagues, stakeholders, and the public at large about heliophysics scientific and flight program achievements and milestones for 2010, for which NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's Heliophysics Science Division (HSD) made important contributions. HSD comprises approximately 323 scientists, technologists, and administrative personnel dedicated to the goal of advancing our knowledge and understanding of the Sun and the wide variety of domains that its variability influences. Our activities include: Leading science investigations involving flight hardware, theory, and data analysis and modeling that will answer the strategic questions posed in the Heliophysics Roadmap; Leading the development of new solar and space physics mission concepts and support their implementation as Project Scientists; Providing access to measurements from the Heliophysics Great Observatory through our Science Information Systems; and Communicating science results to the public and inspiring the next generation of scientists and explorers

Multi-modal MHD oscillations in the solar corona, and their use in coronal seismology

The solar atmosphere is a dynamic, inhomogeneous environment which acts as a natural plasma laboratory for a keen community of observers and researchers at the forefront of modern physics. Colossal plasma non-uniformities on the Sun are seen to host a wide variety of magnetoacoustic oscillatory motions, which may be used as probes into the local plasma conditions using the theory of long wavelength, large scale magnetohydrodynamics (MHD): this process is known as coronal seismology. The focus of this thesis is to contribute to the detailed observation of these waves and their use in coronal seismology, particularly the usefulness of observing multiple harmonics and understanding of dispersion. Fast kink-mode oscillations of coronal loops, observed as rapidly decaying transverse displacements, are a well-understood wave mode used for seismology. The simultaneous detection of multiple harmonics can provide more information, allowing one to match the observed dispersion with that predicted by theory. Extreme ultraviolet observations of a coronal loop hosting a standing kink oscillation are analysed using image processing and time series techniques. The presence of two simultaneous harmonics is revealed, a fundamental mode at a period of ∼ 8 minutes and its third harmonic at ∼ 2.6 minutes. The ratio of periods P1/3P3 was found to be ∼ 0.87, whose departure from unity indicates a non-uniform distribution of kink speed through the loop. For all locations, the ratio of damping time to period for the two harmonics were found to agree within error, validating the widely assumed 1d resonant absorption theory used to explain a kink oscillation’s rapid damping. This is the first time a measurement of the signal quality for a higher harmonic of a kink oscillation has been reported with spatially resolved data. One exciting development in coronal seismology is the recent detection of decay-less oscillations, which are a different regime of fast-kink oscillations omnipresent in coronal loops. The first detection of a coronal loop exhibiting multi-modal decay-less oscillations is presented, in which both the loop’s fundamental mode (P1 = 10.3 +1.5 −1.7 minutes) and its second harmonic (P2 = 7.4 +1.1 −1.3 minutes) are detected. To make this detection possible, the observational data was passed through a novel motion magnification algorithm to accentuate transverse oscillations. An illustration of seismology using the ratio P1/2P2 ∼ 0.7 to estimate the density scale height is presented. The existence of multiple harmonics has implications for understanding the driving and damping mechanisms for decay-less oscillations, and adds credence to their interpretation as standing kink mode oscillations. There is a myriad of MHD oscillation modes, and whilst fast-kink modes are observed as transverse displacements of the plasma non-uniformity, slow modes may be observed as intensity enhancements. Analysis of such propagating slow modes observed in a fan of coronal loops above a sunspot is performed. The instantaneous velocities and periods of these intensity enhancements are measured and compared in different temperature passbands and azimuthal angles. The waves seen in the 171˚A channel (∼ 0.6 MK) appeared slower than when observed co-spatially in the 193˚A (∼ 1.58 MK). This contradicts the expectation that the phase speed is approximately the local sound speed, which varies as the square root of the temperature. This discrepancy is resolved by attributing the difference in apparent velocity to different inclination angles, which are estimated to be 9° ± 3° from the vertical for the waves seen in 193 A, and 19° ± 4° when seen in 171 A. This provides some evidence supporting the theory that coronal loops are formed of several distinct, unresolved strands of different temperature. From the theoretical point of view, the dispersion relation governing slow MHD modes in the presence of a wave-induced misbalance between the plasma heating and cooling mechanisms is developed. The thin flux tube approximation is used to account for finite-β effects, and thermal conduction is also included. The dispersion relation in the limits of weak non-adiabaticity and strong non-adiabaticity with finite-β is identified. It is found that the characteristic timescales of this imbalance (e.g. damping time) may be expressed in terms of the partial derivatives of the combined heating/cooling function with respect to constant gas pressure and constant magnetic pressure. Moreover, these characteristic timescales for the thermal misbalance coincide with typical MHD wave periods for a large range of densities and temperatures typical of the corona. Thus in the general case the dispersion on slow waves by the wave-induced thermal misbalance should not be neglected, and its inclusion may resolve some contradictions that have arisen when attributing the rapid damping of slow modes to thermal conduction or compressive viscosity alone. Instability criteria for the slow mode and entropy (thermal) mode are expressed in terms of a parameterisation of the unknown coronal heating function, under this thin flux tube approximation. Finally, noting that observations of slow modes in the corona do not show over-stability, and that the thermal mode does not appear to be unstable in general (with the exception of coronal rain), a new way of constraining the coronal heating function is presented

Principles Of Heliophysics: a textbook on the universal processes behind planetary habitability

This textbook gives a perspective of heliophysics in a way that emphasizes universal processes from a perspective that draws attention to what provides Earth (and similar (exo-)planets) with a relatively stable setting in which life as we know it can thrive. The book is intended for students in physical sciences in later years of their university training and for beginning graduate students in fields of solar, stellar, (exo-)planetary, and planetary-system sciences.Comment: 419 pages, 119 figures, and 200 "activities" in the form of problems, exercises, explorations, literature readings, and "what if" challenge

GSFC Heliophysics Science Division 2009 Science Highlights

This report is intended to record and communicate to our colleagues, stakeholders, and the public at large about heliophysics scientific and flight program achievements and milestones for 2009, for which NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's Heliophysics Science Division (HSD) made important contributions. HSD comprises approximately 299 scientists, technologists, and administrative personnel dedicated to the goal of advancing our knowledge and understanding of the Sun and the wide variety of domains that its variability influences. Our activities include: Leading science investigations involving flight hardware, theory, and data analysis and modeling that will answer the strategic questions posed in the Heliophysics Roadmap; Leading the development of new solar and space physics mission concepts and support their implementation as Project Scientists; Providing access to measurements from the Heliophysics Great Observatory through our Science Information Systems; and Communicating science results to the public and inspiring the next generation of scientists and explorers

NASA University program management information system, FY 1993

The University Program Report, Fiscal Year 1993, provides current information and related statistics for 7682 grants/contracts/cooperative agreements active during the report period. NASA field centers and certain Headquarters program offices provide funds for those R&D activities in universities which contribute to the mission needs of that particular NASA element. This annual report is one means of documenting the NASA-university relationship, frequently denoted, collectively, as NASA's University Program

NASA university program management information system, FY 1994

The University Program report, Fiscal Year 1994, provides current information and related statistics for 7841 grants/contracts/cooperative agreements active during the reporting period. NASA field centers and certain Headquarters program offices provide funds for those activities in universities which contribute to the mission needs of that particular NASA element. This annual report is one means of documenting the NASA-university relationship, frequently denoted, collectively, as NASA's University Program

Nostratic Dictionary

A revised edition can be found at http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/244080.Aharon Dolgopolsky is the leading authority on the Nostratic macrofamily. His 'Nostratic Dictionary' presented here is, of course, something very much more than a dictionary. It is the most thorough and extensive demonstration and documentation so far of what may be termed the Nostratic hypothesis: that several of the world's best- known language families are related in their origin, their grammar and their lexicon, and that they belong together in a larger unit, of earlier origin, the Nostratic macrofamily. It should at once be noted that several elements of this enterprise are controversial. For while the Nostratic hypothesis has many supporters, it has been criticized on rather fundamental grounds by a number of distinguished linguists. The matter was reviewed some years ago in a symposium held at the McDonald Institute, and positions remain very much polarized. It was a result of that meeting that the decision was taken to invite Aharon Dolgopolsky to publish his Dictionary - a much more substantial treatise than any work hitherto undertaken on the subject - at the McDonald Institute. For it became clear that the diversities of view expressed at that symposium were not likely to be resolved by further polemical exchanges. Instead, a substantial body of data was required, whose examination and evaluation could subsequently lead to more mature judgments. Those data are presented here, and that more mature evaluation can now proceed.McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research Alfred P. Sloan Foundatio