THE SUN-EARTH CONNECTION
An Education and Public Outreach (EPO) Newsletter
for the Sun-Earth Connection Science Community - and beyond!
June 19, 2002 Volume III, Issue 5
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See End for Sponsor Information, How to Contribute (please
do!), Contact Us, Unsubscribe, or Find Back Issues
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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=> 1. Venus Transit 2004 – The Team Needs You!
=> 2. New SOHO Slide Presentation Available
=> 3. Deadline for Contribution to Space Weather Week/
Space Weather CD-ROM in Europe is June 21
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1. VENUS TRANSIT 2004 EPO EVENT – THE TEAM NEEDS YOU!
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On June 8, 2004, at sunrise on the east coast, the planet Venus
will complete its 6-hour passage across the face of the Sun. The
last time this dramatic event occurred was on December 6, 1882.
Dr. Sten Odenwald, of the Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum
(SECEF), wants to coordinate NASA resources to observe this
transit and to explore the many opportunities it will offer to
involve students, teachers and the general public. If you want
to get in on the planning or suggest new activities to support
NASA's E&PO for this event, please contact Sten directly at
odenwald@bolero.gsfc.nasa.gov, or call him at (301) 286-6953,
so that you can become a part of the Venus Transit Team.
Beginning immediately, the team would like to have our first
'kick-off' teleconference to introduce ourselves and our interests.
Please have a look at the document at
http://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/venus/venus1.html
to get an idea of what the Transit is all about, and some of the
activities we might support.
Among the many possibilities for involving students, teachers
and the public, we would like to consider organizing public
observatories along the east coast of North and South America
to post real-time images of the transit, many using H-alpha
filters. Students will use the images to calculate the solar
parallax, just as professional astronomers did during past
transits.
We would especially like to set up observing stations in
Newfoundland and Rio de Janeiro, or coordinate with observatories
already there, to make a very long baseline, 7000km parallax
observation. TRACE imagery of the Transit may also be available.
Other student projects may include time capsules for the 2012
and 2134 transits, and a NASA/CONNECT program on parallax and
the scale of the solar system. Because the event occurs on a
weekday/school day, students could observe it before school,
with the help of local amateur astronomers. There will
be also be ample opportunities to explore past historical
transits through documents made available in collaboration
with the Library of Congress American Memory Project. The transit
will very likely be televised by early morning news programs
such as “Today” and CNN — if we can provide suitable resources.
We are also working with Sky and Telescope and Travel Quest Tours
to help them design a Venus Transit 2004 ocean cruise. (This company
normally offers annual eclipse tours in collaboration with Sky and
Telescope magazine.) Although this is an east coast observing
opportunity, we will discuss how to develop nationally-oriented
outreach activities at museums and other locations. We need your
help and ideas to make this a major national event! Please contact
us ASAP!
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2. NEW SOHO SLIDE PRESENTATION Available
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We are pleased to announce the release of a new and updated SOHO
slide presentation. The 37 slides give an overview of SOHO's views
of the Sun and include some of our most dramatic and compelling
images. They cover such topics as the parts of the Sun, sunspots,
corona mass ejections, flares, the solar cycle, and space weather.
Each slide is titled and has an explanatory paragraph associated
with it. This set was developed expressly for the general public
and educators. So, as much as possible, scientific jargon and
unfamiliar terms were avoided.
The low resolution version is suitable for casual viewing on the
web. The medium level version is most appropriate for giving a
presentation. The high resolution version is best for printing
overheads, hard copy or slides. We encourage all who are interested
to download and use the show.
The slide set is available in PDF format from the SOHO Hotshots
page: http://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/hotshots/
http://soho.estec.esa.nl/hotshots/
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3. Deadline for Contribution to Space Weather Week/Space Weather
CD-Rom in Europe IS June 21
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From: Frank Jansen <jansen@physik.uni-greifswald.de>
The European Commission/DG Research is funding a project called
"Space Weather" to raise public awareness of space weather in Europe
in fall this year. The aim of this project is to illustrate to the
general public, organizations, industry and governments the impacts
of space weather on everyday life. Scientists (e.g. from ESA, DLR,
FMI, MPE, MPAe), journalists, managers from industry and new media
experts from Germany, Finland, France, Poland and Switzerland are
working together as part of this EU project. This consortium will
produce the following for the 2002 European Science and
Technology Week (ESTW, 4-10 November 2002):
- a space weather forum,
- an interactive CD-Rom,
- a traveling exhibition,
- a planetarium show and
- a spark chamber for cosmic rays.
The highlight of the week will be the space weather forum at the
Zeiss-Grossplanetarium Berlin in Germany on 4 November 2002 with
direct video links to the ISS and space weather experts.
The entire forum will be produced as a TV-stream, available in
real time to TV and internet viewers. Posters, flyers and other
PR material related to ESTW (available from the EU in 11 official
EU languages) and space weather itself (from ESA) will also be
freely available.
The consortium would welcome your attendance and participation in
the 2002 ESTW event from 4 to 10 November 2002. In addition, in
order to assist with the preparation of PR material, the consortium
invites the readers of AGU Newsletter to contribute with:
- movies,
- images,
- effects and
- stories
relating to space weather. This might include any or several of
the following topics: physics/space science; aftercast/nowcast/
forecast of space weather storms; cosmic rays; polar lights;
historical aspects (including early solar observations/instruments);
risks for electronics, space flight, aviation, telecommunication,
navigation, electric power transmission, oil and gas industry,
railways; effects on climate; insurance; media coverage;
webpages and others.
The best movies, images, effects and stories will be selected
for a CD-Rom, the exhibition and the planetarium show! It is foreseen
that ESTW/Space Weather events will be organized in institutions,
science museums, schools and planetariums all over Europe in a
similar manner to the "Sun-Earth-Day" jointly celebrated by ESA and
NASA in April 2001 in both Europe and the USA.
The deadline for contributions to the first Space Weather CD-Rom
is Friday 21June 2002. You can submit your inputs to the following
ftp-account at the University of Greifswald in Germany:
ftp.uni-greifswald.de
name: physik
pwd: safraro
The deadline for contributions to the first Space Weather CD-Rom
is Friday 21June 2002! For further details about ESTW/Space Weather
2002, contributions to the space weather CD-Rom, the exhibition and/or
the planetarium show please contact:
Dr. Frank Jansen
University of Greifswald
Institute for Physics
Project WWW - WeltraumWetterWarte Greifswald
(Space Weather Observatory)
Domstr. 10 a
17489 Greifswald
Germany
tel +49-3834-864774
fax +49-3834-864701
http://www.www-greifswald.de
For more information related to
- previous ESTW see in http://www.cordis.lu/scienceweek/home.htm
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Newsletter Sponsor Info: Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum
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An integral element of the Office of Space Science (OSS)
education and public outreach strategy is the establishment of
a network for space science to foster a wide variety of edu-
cation and public outreach activities. This network of
institutions include (1) four Education Forums that serve as
major centers for space science education and public outreach
in each of the four OSS Themes, and (2) a set of regional
Broker/Facilitators who, for example, help arrange collab-
orations between scientists and the education community.
The Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum (SECEF) is a partner-
ship led by Goddard Space Flight Center and UC Berkeley’s
Space Sciences Laboratory. To learn more about SECEF and the
Office of Space Science Education and Public Outreach program,
go to:
http://spacescience.nasa.gov/education/ecosystem/index.htm
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How to Contact Us
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The Sun-Earth CONNECTION Education and Public Outreach
newsletter is issued approximately every 4-6 weeks. Back issues
can be found at
http://sunearth.ssl.berkeley.edu/SECNews/
The Newsletter is sponsored by the NASA Sun-Earth Connection
Education Forum (Goddard Space Flight Center and UC Berkeley;
Rich Vondrak and Isabel Hawkins, Co-Directors) Sun-Earth
Connection Education Forum Web Site:
http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov and
http://sunearth.ssl.berkeley.edu
Please direct all submissions to the newsletter to:
Karin Hauck (Editor) - E-mail: editor@sunearth.ssl.berkeley.edu
Phone: (510) 642-2343 Fax: (510) 643-5660
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