Special Colloquium: Alan Title (Solar Dynamics Observatory): Alan Title -- Solar Dynamics Observatory and Global Solar Phenomena

This is a first notice that there will be a Special Colloquium on
July 5 at 3-4pm in Lecture Theatre 1 by Alan Title, which should be
of general interest. Alan is a Principal Investigator on NASA’s new
Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft:

http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/

In particular Alan was an architect of the Advanced Imaging Assembly
Instrument providing the great new high-resolution images and movies
of the Sun, such as these:

http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/hotshots.php

An abstract of Alan’s talk is given below.

Alan Title (the solar physicist responsible for the images/movies
from the new Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft - see below)
is visiting the School of Physics and giving a talk. It should
be of general interest, with some beautiful pictures of the Sun.


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SDO and Global Solar Phenomena

Alan Title
Senior Fellow LM Advanced Technology Center
Palo Alto, CA, USA

The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO)  was launched on 11 February 2010
into a geosynchronous orbit that allows it to view the Sun 24/7 and
download science data at over 100 megabits/second.  SDO carries three
instruments,  the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) that produces
full Sun line-of-sight and vector magnetograms as well as doppler maps
for seismic analysis; the Extreme Ultraviolet Variability Experiment
(EVE) measures the solar irradiance from spectra that span 0.1 to 105 nm
every 10 seconds, and the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly that produces
full Sun images over a temperature range from 6000 to 20,000,000 K.  AIA
consists of 4 telescopes each of which operates in two EUV bands that
are narrow enough to isolate spectral lines.  In 12 seconds all eight
wavelength channels are readout from the 4096x4096 CCDs carried by each
telescope.  The high cadence of the observations coupled with the full
Sun field of view,  the 10,000 to 1 dynamic range of the CCDs, and the
ability to directly downlink all the data in realtime is revolutionizing
our understanding of a variety of solar processes.  In this talk I will
focus on the global nature of flares and Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs).
It will be demonstrated the the Sun can operate collectively over more
than 180 degrees of latitude.  Current indications are the the large
scale topology generated by the surface fields controls the span of
violent solar events. Movies will be shown that demonstrate some of
these collective events.  Also realtime access to the data sets will be
demonstrated.