Below is a guide to notable research from LASP being presented at the hybrid Dec. 12-16 American Geophysical Union 2022 meeting, the world’s largest gathering of Earth and space scientists. Presentations are listed in chronological order, and all times are CST.
Media contacts:
Terri Cook, terri.cook@lasp.colorado.edu, +1 (303) 817-0443
Sara Pratt, sara.pratt@lasp.colorado.edu, +1 (303) 735-6614
Testing a new tool to support autonomous exploration of airless surfaces
Gregory Holsclaw, LASP
As part of a NASA-funded field campaign in the northern Arizona desert, Holsclaw’s team tested a spectrometer that uses ultraviolet, a relatively unexplored wavelength region, to assess whether it can determine mineral compositions in future planetary remote sensing and field work.
Wed. Dec. 14, 17:38-17:45 | Room S403b | P36B-08
Ceres: the role of non-water-ice hydration in the regolith of the largest object in the asteroid belt
Margaret Landis, LASP
Ceres, the largest asteroid in the solar system, is incredibly water and hydrogen-rich, but how that material has changed over time remains a mystery. Landis and colleagues give an update on modeling that takes into account how hydrated salts and water ice may be interacting below Ceres’ visible surface.
Thurs. Dec. 15, 11:54-12:04 | Room S403b | P43B-06
Distribution of temperatures on asteroid (24) Themis: implications for water ice stability
Kya Sorli, LASP and CU Boulder Department of Astrophysical & Planetary Sciences
Asteroid (24) Themis is one of the few asteroids that may host water on its surface. This makes it particularly relevant to the long-running controversy about how icy asteroids and Main Belt Comets, which carry water ice and organics key for life in the solar system, may have delivered water to Earth. Sorli and colleagues will discuss their innovative surface-temperature modeling approach that addresses seasonal and annual ice stability on this asteroid’s surface.
Thurs. Dec. 15, 12:14-12:24 | Room S403b | P43B-08
Availability of resources in permanently shadowed lunar polar regions
Alex Doner, LASP and CU Boulder
In situ resource utilization will be crucial for establishing human habitats on the Moon. The expected availability of water ice, and other volatiles in permanently shadowed regions makes the lunar poles of prime interest. This talk will describe a lunar-orbiting dust analyzer currently in development to map surface regions of high interest for finding in situ resources.
Thurs. Dec. 15, 15:05-15:15 | Room S404ab | P45A-03
Revisiting Cassini data to understand Enceladus’ plumes: implications for future missions
Sean Hsu, LASP
Recent reanalysis of Cassini plume measurements indicates that plasma produced from dust particles hitting the spacecraft significantly affected the data collected by two instruments. Hsu will discuss how these new results affect our understanding of the nature of Enceladus’ plumes and the implications for future missions to Saturn’s geologically active moon Endeladus.
Fri. Dec. 16, 14:45-18:15 | Poster Hall A | SM55B-1462
The DYNAGLO CubeSat mission
Aimee Merkel, LASP
In this talk Merkel will review the upcoming DYNamics Atmosphere GLObal-Connection (DYNAGLO) CubeSat constellation mission, estimated to launch in 2025. DYNAGLOwill help to fill an observational gap in the thermosphere by providing atmospheric gravity wave measurements. Characterizing the spectrum of gravity waves that deposit energy and momentum into Earth’s highest atmosphere layers will help to improve model predictions of space weather.
Mon. Dec. 12, 08:42-08:49 | Online | A11G-07
Recent advances in miniaturized energetic particle instruments for CubeSats
Lauren Blum, LASP and CU Boulder Department of Astrophysical & Planetary Sciences
Miniaturized energetic particle instrumentation is driving future CubeSat missions to study radiation belt physics. In this invited talk, Blum will discuss an energetic particle telescope under development to measure bi-directional MeV electron fluxes from a low-altitude CubeSat constellation.
Wed. Dec. 14, 14:50-15:00 | Room S403a | SH35A-01
New CubeSat technology to measure energetic electrons across a wide energy range
Xinlin Li, LASP and CU Boulder Aerospace Engineering Sciences
To meet the challenge of measuring energetic electrons across an energy range spanning more than two orders of magnitude (30keV – 4 MeV), Li and co-authors are developing a miniaturized package of instruments to measure continuous spectral information of energetic electrons in low-Earth orbit.
Wed. Dec. 14, 15:50-16:00 | Room S403a | SH35A-07
The case for a cascading heliospheric current sheet
Stefan Eriksson, LASP
As the Sun’s spiral-shaped magnetic field warps the solar wind, it creates a draped ballerina skirt-shaped structure called the heliospheric current sheet, which is the largest known structure in our solar system. Eriksson will present new modeling results that explain the “tattered” character of this sheet at 1 AU.
Mon. Dec. 12, 14:55-15:05 | Room S403a | SH15B-02
Parker Solar Probe: accounting for differences in near-Earth vs. near-solar plasma waves
David Malaspina, LASP and CU Boulder Department of Astrophysical & Planetary Sciences
Near Earth, the solar wind contains small-scale plasma waves that are low amplitude and nearly evenly distributed in space. Malaspina and co-authors have found that near the Sun, these waves are unevenly distributed, implying that any heating they drive will also be inhomogeneous. Accounting for this may require modification of solar wind-heating theories.
Wed. Dec. 14, 09:15-09:25 | Room S402b | SH32A-02
LISIRD: Making Solar Data More Accessible
Hunter Leise, LASP
The LASP Interactive Solar IRradiance Datacenter (LISIRD) is a website where researchers can discover, visualize, and download solar data from a variety of missions, instruments, models, and laboratories. This presentation will illustrate LISIRD’s key features, showcase its current technology infrastructure, and consider opportunities for future improvements and collaboration.
Fri. Dec. 16, 09:00-12:30 | Digital Poster Monitor Zone 4 | SH52A-73
Hotter than science can explain: investigating the evolution of solar spicules
Vicki Herde, LASP
To understand why the solar corona is much hotter than science can currently explain, we must understand the sources of energy to it. These include spicules: up- or down-flowing jets of heated plasma just above the Sun’s surface. Because of the heating spicules experience, they need to be observed in multiple wavelengths, but few studies have used magnesium-II. This talk presents statistics using these data from the IRIS satellite.
Fri. Dec. 16, 11:12-11:22 | Room S403a | SH53B-02
Interactive and accessible tools to visualize coronal mass ejections
Chris Pankratz, LASP
Solar wind models are critical to informing space weather forecasters of the direction and speed of coronal mass ejections and informing studies of their evolution. Pankratz will discuss the new, open-source visualization tool that’s been collaboratively developed to enable full view of the heliosphere in three dimensions. He will also demonstrate the tool using a variety of data sets.
Mon. Dec. 12, 09:00-12:30 | Poster Hall A | SH12C-1470
GOES-R series satellites: the first real-time measurements of Earth’s thermosphere
Ed Thiemann, LASP
Despite the thermosphere’s crucial role in space weather, there are currently no direct measurements of its state. This will change in mid-2023 as a new, real-time data product from the GOES-R series satellite comes online. Thiemann will make a case that now is the time for model developers and space weather forecasters to determine how these data should be used.
Wed. Dec. 14, 09:00-12:30 | Poster Hall A | SA32D-1699
Testing heating mechanisms that led to the September 7-8, 2017, magnetic storm
Naomi Maruyama, LASP
Maruyama will discuss using a physics-based model to test heating mechanisms that can impact the thermal structure of the coupled magnetosphere-plasmasphere-ionosphere system. A special focus is comparing the response of auroral and other types of heating to the magnetic storm on September 7-8, 2017, when a very severe plasmasphere erosion was observed.
Wed. Dec. 14, 12:20-12:30 | Room S402a | SM33B-09
A novel system to sense thermal neutrals: the Neutral-Optics Velocity Analyzer
Marcin Pilinski, LASP
To address the lack of wind and temperature data necessary to understand space weather, a breakthrough in sensing technology is needed that reduces the complexity of the necessary instruments, allowing them to be deployed at scale. To accomplish this, Pilinski and co-authors at the University of Colorado Boulder are developing NOVA, a system that analyzes thermal neutrals without ionization.
Fri. Dec. 16, 15:15-15:25 | Room S403a | SH55B-04
Using a machine-learning model to better understand Earth’s plasmasphere
Max Doering, REU student at LASP
Doering and co-authors developed non-linear machine learning models to produce global reconstructions of the plasmasphere at any time and location. The results will help explain the complex physics happening in this region.
Mon. Dec. 12, 10:18-10:27 | Room S401ab | SM12A-09
Characterizing electron precipitation events with self-organizing maps
Sergio Vidal-Luengo, LASP
Vidal-Luengo and co-authors used a self-organizing map technique to automatically detect and classify relativistic electron precipitation events observed by the CALorimetric Electron Telescope (CALET) experiment on the International Space Station. The results show that high-variability electron precipitation events are predominant at higher magnetic latitudes compared to events with low-variability electron precipitation.
Tues. Dec. 13, 09:50-10:00 | Room S401ab | SM22C-05
Using machine learning to better predict ionospheric currents
Xin Cao, LASP
To understand variations in ionospheric currents and their responses to external drivers such as solar radiation and magnetospheric activities, Cao and co-authors developed a model that reproduces the currents based on a feed-forward neural network using data from multiple spacecraft and ground-based observations. The model successfully reconstructs the currents within and beyond the North America and Greenland sectors.
Wed. Dec. 14, 08:20-08:30 | Online | SM31A-03
Pushing the frontiers of geoelectric hazard modeling
Gabriel Moraga, REU student at LASP
Because major solar storms can adversely affect power grids, there’s a growing need to enhance geoelectric hazard modeling. Currently, there are ~30 ground-based stations across North America that measure the surface geomagnetic field data used as input for geoelectric field maps. Because there is no machine-learning method to fill in missing data in real time, Moraga and colleagues created an algorithm to do this and spot anomalies, “cleaning” the data that can be used to produce more robust geoelectric hazard maps.
Fri. Dec. 16, 09:00-12:30 | Poster Hall A | NG52A-0181
