| HELIOPHYSICS PICTURE OF THE WEEK
"Astronaut Weather"
This plot illustrates the risks to Apollo era astronauts owing to the energetic particles generated by the sun during the years when they made frequent trips to the moon. Astronauts exposed on the lunar surface would receive the full doses indicated by the vertical bars, while those in the Lunar Module or Command Module would receive smaller doses as indicated. The biggest event was clearly the Aug 1972 flare, for which the radiation level of several thousand REM represents a level where human effects start to become acute and debilitating. As described in Robert Michener's "Space", had this flare occurred during one of the Apollo missions, it would likely have resulted in loss of any exposed Astronauts.
Credit: Barbara Giles, NASA HQ, and Thomas Moore, NASA GSFC
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| IHY OBSERVATORY OF THE WEEK
SCINDA
SCINDA (SCIntillation Network Decision Aid)
is a real-time, data driven, communication outage forecast and alert system.
Its purpose is to aid in the specification and prediction of communications degradation due to disruption of the Earth's uppermost atmosphere in the earth's equatorial region. Through IHY, new SCINDA sites are being established worldwide!
These new sites provide vital information to
mitigate the impacts on the satellite communications (SATCOM) community.
Learn more about SCINDA
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| IHY PERSONALITY OF THE WEEK
Prof. Marius Potgieter
Dr. Marius Potgieter is a professor at North-West University in Potchefstroom,
South Africa and is internationally recognized for his research in
outer heliospheric physics He also serves as the Regional Coordinator
for IHY Africa and has recruited many African nations to participate in IHY.
There are also many new instrument sites, including several new SCINDA
installations (see this week's Observatory of the Week).
Learn more about Marius
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| IHY ACTIVITY OF THE WEEK
Sun-Earth Day
It's Sun-Earth Day! We live in the atmosphere of a dynamic, magnetic star that interacts with the Earth and the planets beyond, and Sun-Earth Day is an
excellent opportunity to learn about our dynamic star and our home planet. This year's theme is "Living in the Atmosphere of
the Sun." Please join us for several fun activities and events, including
a special Sun-Earth Day Webcast.
Sun-Earth Day 2007 Home Page
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