[5 December 2005 ]

-  A unified treatment of virtual observatories, data and grid systems and archiving has recently been published by Tim Eastman (QSS/Code672) and data center colleagues in the online journal of ICSU - CODATA (http://www.codata.org/):

-  John Cooper (Code 672) is a Co-Investigator on a newly-selected planetary atmospheres NRA proposal. The proposing team will develop a three-dimensional Atmosphere-Surface Interaction model for Europa to provide guidance for future observations and potential missions. Mau C. Wong (JPL) is the Principal Investigator. Cooper and R. E. Johnson (UVa) are the Co-Investigators.

[29 November 2005 ]

-  Presentations by staff of Code 672 at the Fall 2005 AGU San Francisco meeting (Dec 5-9) include

•   TIMED Science With the Space Physics Data Facility's (SPDF) Data and Models Services, D. Bilitza et al.
•   Sonification Prototype for Space Physics, R. Candey et al.
•   Building from Where We Are: Web Services and Java-Based Clients to Enable Virtual Observatories, R. Candey et al.
•   Polar Gateways to Exploration of Icy Worlds in the Solar System, J. Cooper et al.
•   Pc5 Entry and Modes in the Magnetosphere, R. Kessel and X. Shao (U. MD)
•   Supporting the SSSC Great Observatory: S3C Active Archive Data and Services Today, T Kovalick et al.
•   The Virtual Great Observatory: Do We Know How to Make It Real?, R. McGuire and A. Roberts (612.2)

-  The Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum staff (code 672) held a workshop "From Earth to Sky" the week of Nov 28th with the support of Earth System Science personnel. The workshop involves a dozen of master interpreters from National Park Service to look at how NASA content is useful and accessible to park interpreters.

-  Troy Cline (SECEF, code 672) is presenting Sun-Earth Day and other NASA education projects in the "World Indigenous People Conference on Education" in Hamilton, New Zealand, November 28 - December 1, 2005. SECEF staff (code 672) will be providing system demonstrations in the NASA exhibit booth at the Fall 2005 AGU Dec 5-9 to science colleagues. We will also be doing demonstrations and scavenger hunt for 400 students. This is a new collaboration with AGU and other agencies on the exhibit floor.

[ 22 November 2005 ]

-  The International Reference ionosphere (IRI) was discussed during an ISO meeting at DLR in Cologne (Germany), Nov 14-17. ISO Technical Specification 16457, which is now being readied for voting, recommends IRI for the representation of ionospheric parameters. D. Bilitza (Raytheon/672) one of the principal authors of IRI and TS 16457 prepared a status report that was presented by B. Reinisch (U. Massachusetts Lowell) at the meeting.

[ 17 November 2005 ]

-  The Space Science Visualization Lab (SSVL, part of 672) is supporting the Sciences and Exploration Directorate's Media Training for Code 600 scientists. This training will help scientists communicate more effectively in interviews / press conferences and teach them how to be more effective resources for the news media. SSVL support for this activity includes the Web-based pre-training survey form and scheduling planner, video taping of training sessions, and production of individual disc copies of attendees' video segments.

-  On Nov. 8-10 a panel of education experts reviewed the Space Science Education Support Network at the request of the Science Mission Directorate Education leader, Dr. Carl Pilcher. Jim Thieman served as the representative of the Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum (SECEF, code 672) at this review. Although the panel asked some difficult questions they also seemed very interested in eliciting information from Support Network representatives concerning ways to eliminate obstacles to making a good thing better.

-  The Space Science Visualization Lab (SSVL, part of 672) is supporting the Sciences and Exploration Directorate's Media Training for Code 600 scientists. This training will help scientists communicate more effectively in interviews / press conferences and teach them how to be more effective resources for the news media. SSVL support for this activity includes the Web-based pre-training survey form and scheduling planner, video taping of training sessions, and production of individual disc copies of attendees' video segments.

-  On Nov. 8-10 a panel of education experts reviewed the Space Science Education Support Network at the request of the Science Mission Directorate Education leader, Dr. Carl Pilcher. Jim Thieman served as the representative of the Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum (SECEF, code 672) at this review. Although the panel asked some difficult questions they also seemed very interested in eliciting information from Support Network representatives concerning ways to eliminate obstacles to making a good thing better.

[ 8 November 2005 ]

-  D. Bilitza (672/Raytheon) is working jointly with colleagues at NOAA's Space Environment Center on characterizing ionospheric variability as a function of season, latitude, local time, and geomagnetic activity. Results including a first model description were published in the latest issue of Radio Science (Vol. 40, RS5009, doi:10.1029/2004RS003179, 2005).

-  John Cooper (672) submitted the proposal "Space Physics of Life (SPOL) - The Search for Habitable Worlds, Chemical Resources, and Signs for Life" to the NASA Astrobiology Institute in response to NAI's solicitation for new lead science teams to join the Institute. In support of astrobiology and the search for signs of extraterrestrial life in the solar system, this proposal seeks to understand and make use of space physics environment interactions with potentially habitable or prebiotic bodies such as Europa and Titan. The SPOL team includes eleven institutions and an interdisciplinary group of scientists with expertise in space physics and astrophysics, planetary and earth science, biology, and education. Other Goddard participants include James Green (605), Michael Collier (612.2), Edward Sittler (612.2), Robert Benson (612.2), Steven Sturner (USRA/661), Robert Bindschadler (614), Thorsten Markus (614.6), Lou Mayo (Raytheon/672), and Carolyn Ng (QSS/672).

[ 19 October 2005 ]

-  On October 15-18, 2005 Carolyn Ng (code 672) of the Sun Earth Connection Education Forum (SECEF) attended the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC) conference in Richmond, Virginia. Besides promoting Space Weather products at the NASA booth, she presented "Sun-Earth Day 2006: Eclipse in a Different Light" in a joint session with the Bishop Museum and several NASA teams. She also participated in a museum focus group for education and public outreach activities related to the International Polar Year/International Heliophysical Year.

[ 14 October 2005 ]

-  See October 2005 report on SPDF/SECAA Highlights.

[ 12 October 2005 ]

-  John Cooper (672) attended the open meeting in Arlington, VA of the Outer Planets Assessment Group (OPAG) and participated in lively discussions with OPAG participants and NASA Headquarters representatives on future directions of NASA's outer planets exploration program including missions to Europa and Titan.

-  A team composed of Goddard (672, 690.1) and UC Berkeley Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum members, together with Goddard Earth Science education, personnel from the National Park Service and Ideum, Inc. were notified of the acceptance of their proposal entitled "Earth to Sky Tools and Products: Putting NASA Conent into the Hands of National Park Interpreters". This will be a NASA Explorer Institute program follow-on to a previous effort that trained many National Park Service Interpreters in using NASA content within programs in their parks. The new effort will identify and/or develop NASA resources specifically of use to the Interpreters.

[ 4 October 2005 ]

-  The first meeting of the Space Physics Data Facility's (code 672) new external Science Advisory Group was held at Goddard September 29-30. Chaired by Terry Onsager of NOAA, the group focused on the active archive services of SPDF during their meeting. While the group is still working on its summary recommendations, the general sense was a well established and successful foundation in services highly valuable to the solar wind-magnetosphere community. The group recommended SPDF should build boldly from this base into a broader range of disciplines to provide integrated access to data of the Sun Solar System Connection Great Observatory.

-  Melvyn Goldstein (612.3) and Ramona Kessel (672) recently attended the Cluster and Double Star symposium celebrating the 5th anniversary of Cluster in space, held at ESTEC, the Netherlands. Goldstein and Kessel also participated in the Cluster PEACE team meeting the following week at CETP, France. The team meeting included discussions of operations and policy for the extended mission, particularly separation strategy for the 4 satellites, state of the on-board vs. ground processed plasma moments, changes to the PEACE database and status of the active archive, as well as science contributions.

-  Ramona Kessel (672) was selected for support for her Core Capability proposal entitled, "Finding Flow Vortices near Magnetospheric Boundaries." This work will team Earth and space scientists to develop automatic vortex detection techniques that can Ramona Kessel (672) was selected for support for her Core Capability proposal entitled, "Finding Flow Vortices near Magnetospheric Boundaries." This work will team Earth and space scientists to develop automatic vortex detection techniques that can be applied across disciplines, for example in hurricanes on Earth, at Jupiter's red spot, and for magnetospheric flow vortices.

[ 23 September 2005 ]

-  Dr. Nand Lal (code 672) is a co-author on the paper "Voyager 1 Explores the Termination Shock region and the Heliosheath Beyond" to be published by Science on September 23rd. Results from the Cosmic Ray Subsystem (CRS) instrument show the termination shock is a steady but weak source of energetic particles. Although the shock has been the expected source of the anomalous cosmic rays (ACRs) first observed near Earth in the 1970s, the intensity of ACR helium did not peak at the shock, indicating the source is not in the shock region local to the Voyager crossing point.

-  A proposal titled "Student Observation Network: Living and Working on the Moon" submitted by Don Robinson-Boonstra, Elaine Lewis, Troy Cline, Jim Thieman, and several others for the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate (ESMD) Education Intramural Call for Project Ideas (ICPI) FY 2006 has been selected for funding. This will be a one year effort creating a new module for the Student Observation Network (SON).

-  Sun Earth Connection (SEC) Education Forum (SECEF, code 672), SEC mission E/PO leads, and other interested scientists participated in the annual meeting of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP) in Tucson, Arizona September 14-16, 2005 with the theme "Building Community: The Emerging EPO Profession." The ASP meeting was preceded by a one-day All-Hands meeting of close to 100 NASA E/PO leads. As part of these activities, SECEF personnel helped to plan and conduct workshops to enhance the capacity of E/PO leads in informal and formal education, organizing high leverage programs and diversity. SECEF also held a Forum Retreat with E/PO leads to brainstorm high leverage collaboration opportunities.

[ 30 August 2005 ]

-  The Polar Gateways investigation team of John Cooper (672) is part of the two International Polar Year lead science groups now conditionally endorsed by the ICSU/WMO Joint Committee for the International Polar Year 2007-2008. The GIIPSY (Global Inter-agency IPY Polar Snapshot Year) group will carry out satellite and balloon remote sensing of polar ice regions. The ICESTAR/IHY (Interhemispheric Conjugacy in Geospace Phenomena and their Heliospheric Drivers) group is focused on investigations of the polar ionospheres, magnetospheres, and connections to the heliosphere. The Polar Gateways team has proposed an Antarctic balloon-borne radio sounder contributing to IPY goals of both groups.

[ 23 August 2005 ]

-  Lou Mayo, Tim Eastman, Carolyn Ng (672) and Jim Thieman (690.1) met on Friday, August 19th with the director of DC Space Grant Consortium, Dr. Richard Berendzen, and his associate Ms. Charlene Stone to discuss education outreach activities in general and the accomplishments of INSPIRE with the recent passing of its co-founder, Dr. Bill Taylor. INSPIRE is a non-profit scientific, educational corporation whose objective is to bring the excitement of observing natural and manmade radio waves in the audio region to high school students.

[ 16 August 2005 ]

-  Articles recently published in the latest AGU Geophysical Monograph (No. 155, The Inner Magnetosphere: Physics and Modeling) include: Advances in Inner Magnetosphere Passive and Active Wave Research by J. L. Green (605) and S. F. Fung (672); and Investigation of 3D Energetic Particle Transport Inside Quiet-Time Magnetosphere Using Particle Tracing in Global MHD Model by X. Shao (NRC, 672), S. F. Fung (672), et al.

-  Shing Fung (672) is co-editor of a special issue (vol 26, No. 1-3, January 2005) of Surveys in Geophysics on Magnetospheric Cusp: Structure and Dynamics now also published as a book by Springer. The special issue is an outgrowth of a special AGU session.

[ 12 August 2005 ]

-  See the August 2005 bimonthly report on activities of Sun Solar System Connection Active Archive (S3CAA) project [PDF].

[ 3 August 2005 ]

-  Jim Thieman and Elaine Lewis presented education activities in the Fifth Exceptional Needs Workshops in Huntsville, Alabama on July 24-28, 2005. Over 50 science educators, curriculum developer, and special needs specialists shared their knowledge and experiences. All participants simulated a variety of physical disabilities so as to provide recommendations for modifications and future design of products. the Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum (SECEF, code 672) has participated in the annual workshop and the various working groups for the past 5 years.

[ 20 July 2005 ]

-  Mona Kessel (code 672) published a paper entitled, "How does the solar wind power the magnetosphere during geo-effective high speed stream?" in the monograph, Multiscale Coupling of Sun-Earth Processes. The paper demonstrates solar energy flux in a high speed solar wind stream coupling to the magntosphere and causing magnetospheric pulsations. The most significant observation is that more energy may be transferred at the nose of the magnetopause than at the flanks.

[ 13 July 2005 ]

-  Aaron Roberts, Joe Gurman, Dean Pesnell and Bob McGuire (all LSSP, code 612) , gave presentations [view Code 672 presentation] on their current data functions and services to the S3C Data and Computing Working Group meeting July 11-12 in Washington. Dr. Roberts is a current full member of the Working Group, while Drs. McGuire and Gurman are regularly invited to participate in the group's meetings as the leads for key active data archives supporting the S3C science community. Dr. Pesnell presented as the project scientist for Solar Dynamics Observatory.

-  John Cooper (Code 672) was named to the Science Organizing Committee of a new book on the Kuiper Belt in the University of Arizona Space Science Series. He will focus on contributions relating to interactions of Kuiper Belt Objects with the local space and global heliospheric environments.

-  D. Bilitza (Code 672) attended the International Reference Ionosphere Workshop at the Ebro Observatory in Tortosa, Spain from June 27 to July 1. He presented talks describing the newest version of the IRI model (invited), the solar cycle variation of topside temperatures and densities, and the use of ionospheric data from dual-frequencies ground and space techniques (e.g., GPS, VLBI, TOPEX, Jason) for updating the IRI model. He was also a co-author on papers discussing IRI improvements with TIMED/GUVI data (presenter: R. DeMajiestri, APL) and IRI performance in predicting 2002-2004 ionospheric storm effects (presenter: T. Fuller-Rowell, SEC/NOAA).

[ June-July 2005 ]

-  See June-July bi-monthly report on activities, current metrics and plans of the Sun-Solar-System Active Archive (S3CAA).

[ 6 July 2005 ]

-  John Cooper (672) contributed as a team member to proposals submitted June 30 from two international collaborations for coordinated science activities during the International Polar Year (2007-2008). These proposals were respectively GIIPSY (Global Inter-Agency IPY Polar Snapshot Year) for cryospheric remote sensing of the Arctic and Antarctic ice regions, and ICESTAR/IHY (Interhemispheric Conjugacy in Geospace Phenomena and Their Heliosopheric Drivers) for polar ionsopheric, magnetospheric, and related heliospheric science. The proposals are for international recognition as IPY activities and not for funding, which is to be requested separately from national agencies in each country.

-  Elaine Lewis (672) and Jim Thieman (690.1) did a training session for 23 NASA Explorer School educators at Cape Kennedy on June 27-28. The group had expressed an interest in learning about the Student Observation Network's enquiry-based learning module called "Tracking a Solar Storm". They will adapt this for their classroom use in the coming school year.

[ 22 June 2005 ]

-  John Cooper (672) presented a talk 'Prospects for Organic and Inorganic Signs of Life on Europa', and also discussed Antarctic applications for ice glaciology of his recent Polar Gateways proposal, at the North American Paleontology Convention in Halifax, Canada the week of June 20th. He noted that the rapid destruction of any directly exposed biomolecules on the surface of Europa, and other solar system bodies exposed to heliospheric and planetary magnetospheric irradiation, is grounds for much closer consideration of inorganic signs of life for future missions to search for signs of life or its precursors on these bodies.

[ 14 June 2005 ]

-  Three proposals with Principal Investigators from the Space Physics Data Facility (code 672) have been submitted to the Interdisciplinary Exploration Science (IES) NRA announcement. They cover a range of topics including the relationship of seismic triggers to ionospheric and solar wind effects, a balloon-borne radio sounding instrument to fly over the Antarctic to look at both deep ice and ionospheric structures, and a data mining study of relationships among solar surface features, coronal mass ejections and hazardous energetic particle events.

[ 31 May 2005 ]

-  Staff of the Space Physics Data Facility (code 672) were authors or co-authors on a wide range of presentations at the American Geophysical Union's Joint Assembly held in New Orleans May 23-27. Topics presented included work on advanced data services and interfaces, a case study of high speed solar wind interactions with the magnetosphere, the effect of whistler waves on radiation belt structure, variations in topside ionospheric electron temperatures with solar activity, and the dynamics of drift shells in Saturn's magnetosphere.

-  The "beta" release of a new Java-based user interface to the various Sun Solar System Connection Active Archive (S3CAA) services operated by the Space Physics Data Facility (code 672) is now available for testing and feedback from the science community via links the SPDF's home page. Termed "CDAWeb Plus", this interface is an experiment in bringing the complementary and unique capabilities and data served from multiple distinct services into a more integrated perspective for users that facilitates a coherent view of the full scope of the data while highlighting services unique to specific data holdings.

[ 17 May 2005 ]

-  Two software projects in the Space Physics Data Facility (code 672) were profiled in the February 2005 NASA Tech Briefs. SPDF Web services enable a distributed programming interface for additional collaboration and integration of SPDF software systems with other software systems. The Tool for Interactive Plotting, Sonification, and 3D Orbit Display (TIPSOD) is a Java 3D client for generating interactive, animated, four-dimensional (space and time) displays of spacecraft orbits. TIPSOD utilizes the programming interface of the Satellite Situation Center Web (SSCWeb) services to communicate with the SSC logic and database by use of the open protocols of the Internet. The software were developed by Robert M. Candey (Code 672), Reine A. Chimiak (Code 583), and Bernard T. Harris (Code 583) in coordination with many others in SPDF.

[ 10 May 2005 ]

-  The Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum (SECEF) team (code 672) met with Earth and Space scientists in Boulder, Colorado on May 5. Their visit included the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), the Space Science Institute, NOAA's Space Environment Center and National Geophysical Data Center, and the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The purpose of the visit was to identify synergies in education and public outreach efforts and to foster collaborations that will support the International Heliophysical Year and Electronic Geophysical Year in 2007.

-  Dieter Bilitza (code 672) reported on efforts to improve the IRI topside electron density profile during the Ionospheric Effects Symposium in Alexandria, Virginia. This collaboration involves scientists from the University of Massachusetts Lowell, the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy, the Institute of Atmospheric Physics in Prague, Czech Republic, and IZMIRAN in Moscow. The International Reference Ionosphere (IRI) is a widely used model for ionospheric parameters that is currently being considered as an ISO standard.

-  Mona Kessel, Natalia Papitashvili and Tim Eastman (code 672) announced May 10th the public web availability of a new database of observed spacecraft magnetopause crossings The data include 18 spacecraft among which are various IMPs, ISEE, AMPTE and Geotail, generally spanning the time range 1963 - 1998 with a few gaps and covering a range of crossing locations from the dayside to deep magnetospheric tail. Support for this project was provided by the NASA Living With a Star program.

[ 3 May 2005 ]

-  Carol Krueger (Code 672) and Maureen Madden (Code 444) will conduct an Outreach program in mid-May at the St. Labre Indian school in Ashton, Montana, focused to the theme "NASA'S Future is America's Children." The program includes talks, hands-on experiments and informal conversations and cultural exchange. This trip is sponsored by the Space Science Mission Operations project (Code 444).

[ 27 Apr. 2005 ]

-  The Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum (SECEF) Venus Transit Team (code 672) will receive a NASA Group Achievement Award at the May 17th NASA Honor Awards Ceremony. The award is being given for their outstanding Education and Public Outreach effort in association with the June 8, 2004 transit of the Sun's disk by Venus.

-  John Cooper (code 672) participated on April 21 in the first meeting of the Europa mission panel for the NASA's Outer Planets Assessment Group (OPAG) to redefine science priorities and mission requirements for future exploration of Europa, the highest rated planetary destination of the National Research Council's Solar System Exploration Survey. A wide range of mission options are under discussion, potentially including joint missions with ESA including surface landers.

-  Leonard Garcia (code 672) gave two talks at the 6th International Workshop on Planetary and Solar Radio Emissions in Graz, Austria the week of April 18th. In commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the discovery by Drs. Burke and Franklin of radio emissions from Jupiter, Dr. Garcia presented Dr. Franklin's personal reminisces on the discovery. Dr. Garcia also presented new results from the RPI instrument on IMAGE of the seasonal and solar cycle variations of Earth's auroral kilometric radiation.

[ 12 Apr. 2005 ]

-  "Leonard Garcia, Jim Thieman, Elaine Lewis and Carolyn Ng, of the Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum (SECEF) program in SPDF, attended the 82nd convention of the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) on April 7-9, 2005 in Baltimore. (CEC) is the largest international professional organization dedicated to improving educational outcomes for individuals with exceptionalities, students with disabilities, and/or the gifted. More than 1000 teachers, including pre-service and administrators, visited the NASA Science Mission Directorate exhibit and received resources from the various space science missions, forums, and brokers. Leonard and Jim unveiled a kiosk that allowed anyone to listen to radio signals in the solar system. Elaine and others presented in a 3-hour NASA workshop, describing the Sun-Earth Day program and demonstrating an eclipse activity. Among quotes at the exhibit booth: 'Kids like to be on the cutting edge. Only NASA can provide such exciting cutting edge data and imagery to the public for free and make it accessible. Thank you for what you are doing!' [Parent and Educator of Students with Special Needs]; 'You have the coolest booth' [Fellow exhibitor, VA Department of Education]; and 'I don't need to go anywhere else' [Educator of Students with Special Needs]. SECEF has also supported meetings of the National Science Teachers Association in Dallas, Texas and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics in Anaheim, California in the last several weeks.

-  The data served to the international Sun-Solar System Connection (S3C) research community through the SPDF's Coordinated Data Analysis Web (CDAWeb) was extended this week by adding very high altitude wind data from the TIMED Doppler Interferometry (TIDI) experiment. CDAWeb is a unique and heavily used multi-mission, multi-discipline data service (interactively-generated graphics, listings, file downloads). CDAWeb features current key data from almost all current NASA space physics missions and instruments offering an integrated view of these distributed space assets, including data from ACE, Cluster, FAST, Geotail, GOES, IMAGE, multiple LANL geosychronous spacecraft, Polar, Ulysses, Voyager, Wind and others. Working with the instrument teams involved to ensure complementary to their local data services, the TIDI data joins airglow data from TIMED's Global Ultraviolet Imager (GUVI) already in CDAWeb to better enable cross-disciplinary research across S3C science. TIMED data play a critical role in tracking the effects of solar and magnetic storms in Earth's ionosphere and thermosphere.

[ 3 Mar. 2005 ]

-  J. F. Cooper (Code 672) is co-author of the paper "Surface-Bounded Atmosphere of Europa" now published in the February 2005 issue of Icarus. The paper presents a new model for Europa's atmosphere, which arises from interactions of Jovian magnetospheric particles with the moon surface and from the relatively long residence time of a molecular oxygen atmosphere in contact with a cryogenic ice surface.

-  J.H. King and N.E.Papitashvili (code 672) are authors of a paper published in the February 2005 issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research (Space Physics) on the cross-correlation of ACE and Wind interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) and plasma data. For the parameters studied, variation scale lengths were greatest for plasma flow speed (~1400 Re) and least for the IMF z-component (~100 Re). IMF variations had shorter scale lengths at solar quiet times than at active times, while plasma variations demonstrated no solar cycle dependence.

-  Significantly improved Helioweb: Writing new script for HELIOWEB to call program with all input parameters from one line ( conversion script from C to Perl). It includes both home pages for helicentric object and Planets It gives possibilities to run the Helioweb script from within IDL (or other language), retrieve the the filename and then the file and read the data into IDL (or other language) as an array

[ 23 Mar. 2005 ]

-  Chichen Itza webcast on March 20 and NASA Connect TV broadcast on March 17 have been successfully completed. Video streams are now available at sunearthday.nasa.gov. Troy Cline of the Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum (SECEF) effort within the Space Physics Data Facility was the overall coordinator for Sun-Earth Day 2005 as well as the lead for the sunearthday.nasa.gov web page. He helped filming, scripting, and doing the webcasts. Sten Odewald was the lead person in the NASA Connect TV program.

[ 22 Mar. 2005 ]

-  A paper on "How Does the Solar Wind Power the Magnetosphere During Geo-effective High Speed Streams by Drs. Mona Kessel and Xi Shao of the Space Physics Data Facility will appear in the new monograph "Multiscale Coupling of Sun-Earth Processes", scheduled for publication by April 20, 2005. The paper demonstrates the existence of sustained compressional power in high speed streams and the probable transfer of energy from these streams across the magnetopause nose from Geotail and GOES observations.

[ 16 Mar. 2005 ]

-  Staff from the Space Physics Data Facility / Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum (SECEF) will support the Council for Exceptional Children meeting on April 7-9, 2005 in Baltimore. SECEF will exhibit with NASA space science missions, forums, and brokers, featuring a kiosk that allows anyone to listen to radio signals in the solar system, and will also present NASA science and education products in a 3-hour workshop. This conference attracted 7,000 attendees last year, half of them special education teachers and administrators.

[ 9 Mar. 2005 ]

-  On Saturday, March 6th Dr. Lou Mayo and Elaine Lewis of the Space Physics Data Facility and the Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum presented a day long professional development course for 36 DODDS educators in Heidelberg Germany. The focus was NASA's Student Observation Network, which allows students to make observations via a computer and compare it with NASA data. In particular, the workshop dealt with the relationship between the sun and the earth, as they learned how to track a solar storm, designed to further their system's science curriculum, from the elementary level to high school.

-  A half hour math and science program "Ancient Observatories: Timeless Knowledge" will feature Dr. Sten Odenwald of the Space Physics Data Facility and the Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum alongside Native American astronomers to investigate how civilizations worked to unlock the secrets of the Sun using ancient, modern and future technology. This NASA Connect Program will debut on Thursday, March 17, 2005 at 11:00-11:30 AM ET on NASA TV and various PBS stations. See http://sunearthday.nasa.gov for broadcast and webcast alerts.

-  On Sunday, March 20 beginning at 5 PM ET, the Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum in partnership with the Exploratorium of San Francisco will host a live webcast from Chichen Itza, Mexico, as part of the Sun-Earth Day celebrations, in English and Spanish. Thousands of people gather in Chichen Itza to witness the appearance of a serpent-shaped shadow that descends the main staircase of an ancient Mayan temple due to the solar alignment that comes with the eclipse. The program includes a live feed from the site and discussions with local scientists. This program will be available live on the Internet (including Internet-2) and via commercial satellite (transponders will be posted for C-band dishes.) See http://sunearthday.nasa.gov for broadcast and webcast alerts.

[ 2 Mar. 2005 ]

-  As part of the planning team, Troy Cline, Carolyn Ng and Jim Thieman of SECEF attended the "One Earth One Universe" meeting in Santa Fe, New Mexico February 14-18, 2005. This is a capacity building meeting between scientists and Native Americans, several of whom have advised NASA on Sun-Earth Day products and broadcasts as well in NASA exploration missions.

-  Lou Mayo presented to more than 70 enthused educators and program directors at the National Afterschool Association in San Antonio, Texas, February 24-26. Greater numbers of students are spending longer hours in after-school programs. Students in these programs often have up to 10 hours per week for focused activities. Lou and members of the NASA Space Science Support Network offered a number of activities and educational materials that were engaging and of benefit to these students, while also providing "stealth" STEM content. The NASA session was rated the best by the conference attendees.

-  On February 25 Carolyn Ng interacted with 21 NASA Educator Astronaut Teachers at GSFC. In the panel discussion with science E/PO staff, teachers learn about Sun-Earth Day, Student Observation Network and several other programs with which SECEF is involved.

[ 16 Feb. 2005 ]

-  On February 2, 2005, Goddard representatives including staff of the Space Physics Data Facility (Code 672) held a meeting with the District of Columbia Space Grant Consortium (DCSGC) to discuss possible future partnering. There was a wide ranging discussion primarily of NASA education programs and their effects on DCSGC and GSFC. For example, the impact of the HQ Office of Education initiatives, such as Science and Technology Scholarship Program, on the two organizations was discussed. Agreement was reached that DCSGC and GSFC should work toward joint activities, such as a joint next meeting of CapitalSpace - The Greater Washington Space Education Roundtable, in the late spring. CapitalSpace is a unique gathering of leaders for an informal dinner in the diverse fields of aerospace, space science, science generally, workforce readiness, and education, who otherwise might not meet or work together.

-  John Cooper (Space Physics Data Facility, Code 672) is soliciting papers from the space physics, planetary science, and astrobiology communities for submission to the special issue Space Physics, Mars, and Life of the journal Astrobiology with manuscripts due by March 31, 2005. This solicitation addresses the emergent new astrobiological theme of the Space Physics of Life, defined as space environment interactions of astrobiological interest with surfaces and atmospheres of inhabited (Earth), potentially habitable (Moon, Mars, Europa, Titan), and prebiotic (comets, Kuiper Belt, Oort Cloud) bodies in the Solar System. Further information on the journal and the special issue are available at http://www.liebertpub.com/publication.aspx?pub_id=99 .

-  The Space Physics Data Facility is pleased to announce the release of Common Data Format (CDF) Version 3.0. CDF is a standard science data format used by many current space physics missions and planned for use in several upcoming NASA science missions such as THEMIS. Extensive changes have been made in the core library to all for the creation of files greater than 2 Gigabytes in size and native support for time-stamps at much higher precision than earlier versions of the software. Other features include a significant performance improvement for files with many variables accessed sequentially and numerous bug fixes. The new software and its release notes are now available from the CDF home page, http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/cdf.

[ 2 Feb. 2005 ]

-  John F. Cooper recently joined SPDF as Chief Scientist for a range of its space physics active archive activities, and has extensive research background in interactions of magnetospheric and heliospheric space environments with solar system bodies including the icy Galilean moons of Jupiter, the rings and moons of Saturn and Uranus, and Kuiper Belt Objects.

-  John F. Cooper of the Space Physics Data Facility (SPDF, Code 672) has just completed a concept document for the Prometheus Geospace Explorer, a mission to apply high-power ionospheric, magnetospheric, heliospheric, and planetary science instruments to the Earth-Moon-L1/L2 system and interactions with the solar wind. This mission is being considered as a precursor for the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO), where Dr. Cooper has been involved in NASA planning as a member of the Science Definition Team.