Event Details

Space and Planetary Physics webinar

The dawn of the space age marked one of the most exciting technological transitions in history. In a little over 60 years we have gone from a world where nothing humanmade orbited the Earth to one in which space infrastructure touches our everyday lives and underpins much of society’s critical infrastructure. Hand-in-hand with these technological advances, the research fields of space weather and space physics have grown immensely. Drawing on nearly all aspects of the physical sciences and every engineering discipline, this multi-disciplinary STEM field now engages thousands of researchers worldwide in the study of the Earth’s dynamic space environment.

In this presentation, I will describe one small corner of this global landscape associated with key projects at the University of Calgary. Specifically, I will discuss two Canada Foundation for Innovation projects that are developing new capacity in ground-based imaging, targeting space environment specification through remote sensing (TREx and SWAN). I will show “first light” results from the new TREx cameras and discuss the ongoing development to bring the complete systems online. I will also discuss the development of the next generation riometers (both imaging and widebeam systems). These new digital riometers are fully programmable and can operate at a wide range frequencies. I will show prototype data and discuss a new capacity for monitoring terrestrial HF signals (1- ~15MHz) and the implications of observed power losses during cosmic absorption events.

If someone from outside of the SPP group would like to join the webinar, please send a request to w.gould@lancaster.ac.uk