Magnetospheric and auroral processes

Progress was made on the following two projects within the semiannual period: (1) simulations of the magnetic storm of April 1988 using the Magnetospheric Specification Model; and (2) improvement of a user-oriented electric-field model

Dynamics explorer data analysis

The project has shown unambiguously that auroral acceleration is caused by electric fields aligned parallel to the Earth's magnetic field. Evidence was shown of significant ion heating as ions are accelerated upwards in auroral electric fields. This heating is most likely caused by the two-stream instability. The fate of upward ion beams associated with auroral arcs is shown; they appear in the opposite hemisphere as dispersive ion precipitation events. Magnetic merging of the Interplanetary Magnetic Field occurs with both closed dayside magnetospheric field lines and open tail lobe field lines simultaneously nearly 30 percent of the time. The sunward flow in the dawnside plasma sheet is 20 percent smaller, on average, than in the duskside. The convection throat is displaced slightly more toward dawn for B sub y greater than 0 than for B sub y less than 0

Modeling: An Effective Tool for Teaching Reading

Because children are more apt to model when they encounter an unfamiliar concept or different situation, modeling will probably be strongest at the beginning of the school year. However, there are principles of modeling that need to be considered daily

Richard P. Feynman 1918-1988

Richard Feynman, simply put, was a genius. His quick wit and uncommon grasp of physics meant that any research area he encountered, he quickly mastered. Despite the fact that his own area of research was not geophysics, his life and work influenced almost all of us. Virtually every physics graduate student who started in the mid 60s or later was exposed to his Lectures on Physics, either by having them as a text for a course or by using them (as I did) to bone up for oral qualifying exams. Feynman diagrams appear in nearly every modern quantum mechanics textbook and are featured in his official Caltech portrait, which illustrates this article

Improvements in short-term forecasting of geomagnetic activity

We have improved our space weather forecasting algorithms to now predict Dst and AE in addition to Kp for up to 6 h of forecast times. These predictions can be accessed in real time at http://mms.rice. edu/realtime/forecast.html. In addition, in the event of an ongoing or imminent activity, e-mail “alerts” based on key discriminator levels have been going out to our subscribers since October 2003. The neural network–based algorithms utilize ACE data to generate full 1, 3, and 6 h ahead predictions of these indices from the Boyle index, an empirical approximation that estimates the Earth’s polar cap potential using solar wind parameters. Our models yield correlation coefficients of over 0.88, 0.86, and 0.83 for 1 h predictions of Kp, Dst, and AE, respectively, and 0.86, 0.84, and 0.80 when predicting the same but 3 h ahead. Our 6 h ahead predictions, however, have slightly higher uncertainties. Furthermore, the paper also tests other solar wind functions—the Newell driver, the Borovsky control function, and adding solar wind pressure term to the Boyle index—for their ability to predict geomagnetic activity

MMS observations of storm‐time magnetopause boundary layers in the vicinity of the Southern cusp

80MSFC20C0019 - NASAPublished versio

American College of Rheumatology Provisional Criteria for Clinically Relevant Improvement in Children and Adolescents With Childhood-Onset Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

10.1002/acr.23834ARTHRITIS CARE & RESEARCH715579-59

Impact Earth

This planetarium show teaches about meteors, meteorites, asteroids, and comets. It includes results from NASA missions and about the dangers they can pose to life on Earth. It is created for full-dome theaters but can also be shown in flat version for TVs and computer monitors. Shows the effects of the Chixulub and Tungusta events, plus the Pallasite impact that resulted in the Brenham meteorite fall. Describes ways that asteroid hunters seek new objects in the Solar System, and how ground-penetrating radar is used to find meteorites that have reached the Earth's surface and ancient craters under the desert. Narrated by astronaut Tom Jones, it also discusses ways that humans might try to deflect an asteroid or comet that is on a collision course with Earth. Created for informal science venues (digital planetariums), it is also useful as ancillary material for middle school science. Created under NASA Cooperative Agreement NCC5-316 to Rice University in conjunction with the Houston Museum of Natural Science as part of the "Immersive Earth" project, part of the REASoN program. Educational levels: Intermediate elementary, Middle school, High school, General public