- Email: [email protected]
ISY conference in Munich
the Giotto Extended Mission Flyby and Solar System Galaxy Interaction projects. In addition, the Agency is contributing to two life science ISY activities, namely the Symposium on Biomedical Consequences of Living in Space and the project on Biological Significance of Environmental Parameters of Space and Space Ftight. 3. ESA is organizing, jointly with the CEC and the Germany Space Agency DABA, the European ISY Conference in Munich on Space in the Service of the Changing Earth. 4. An important element is also the support the Agency is giving on a bilateral basis to the UN-ISY activities through training workshops and through the supply of Earth obse~ation datasets from ESA ground stations to African countries, to support their research? ‘Although the scientific community is well aware of many activities taking place in space research, the general public are not always so well informed. One of the major achievements of ISY will be to place these activities effectively before the public eye. The result, I hope, will be a better public understanding of the benefits of space activities for our society. As Europe is discussing wideranging plans for future space activities, the public at large must be in a position to appreciate and support our space programme and we must therefore, at all levels, strengthen and deepen understanding of the challenges and significance space holds for 2 1St-century Europe? “Finally, I aIso hope that the ISY wiil result, as did the IGY 35 years ago, in the strengthening of our international cooperation when planning activities extending over many years after 1992, and, as the European space ministers requested in Munich, in opening up participation in European projects to as many other countries as possible?’
6.5. ISY CONFERENCE IN MIJNICHiJ1
Nearly 2000 participants attended the International Conference on Space in the Service of the Changing Earth. It was the first highlight of the KY, when scientists from over 30 countries debated a wide spectrum of applications for crewed and automatic spaceflight. No-one would now deny that present-day problems of environment and climate must be tackled and solved on a global level. Space takes a prominent place in this. Satellites are on the spot to speed up progress in the all-important fields of research into climate, protection of the environment and preservation of natural resources. Most of the cont~butions from science, politics and industry also revolved around these topics. (i~From ESA News Release,
60
3 April
1902
The ISY conference emphatically confirmed Europe’s important role in international cooperation in space. The conference made extensive and important contributions to this position. Held in parallel with the conference, the ISY Space Show welcomed over 10 000 visitors during the first few days. This show provided the genera1 public with a lay persons’s view of the vast scope of space operations in Europe and the rest of the world and received great acclaim from the people of Munich.
6.6. NEW VISTAS OF SOLAR PHYSICS OPENED UP BY YOHKOHf6’
1. Introduction The Sun seen in visible light is a very steady and mild object, giving us warmth and light, and indeed giving life to all terrestrial creatures including mankind. However, it is not so if we go into space and look at it in different wavelength bands of the electromagnetic spectrum, such as ultraviolet, X-ray, gamma-ray and radio. The Sun shows a spectacularly complex face, for example, in the X-ray range. It is not at all steady, and various kinds of highly dynamical events occur in its million-degree outer atmosphere (the corona), producing energetic particles up to hundreds of MeV, and superhot plasmas of tens of millions of degrees, emitting deadly X-ray radiation etc. increasing by a factor of more than a thousand in a few minutes and lasting hours. These are the so-called solar flares. High-velocity plasma outflow of the order of 300-800 km s-’ is expelled continually from the Sun, the solar wind, sometimes punctuated by colossal ejecta carrying mass exceeding hundreds of billions of tons. Such a rough face on our mother Sun is not exceptional in the community of the stars in the cosmos, and much greater versions of such activity have also been found in other stars and in objects of galactic scale. The Sun, however, is the only object on which such phenomena can be seen in spatially-resolved form, due to its proximity; the investigation of these events on the Sun is of fundamental importance in guiding our studies of these astrophysical phenomena in the cosmos. The investigation of these solar phenomena is also of growing concern as a vital factor of our terrestrial environment. The solar-system space into which mankind will eventually emerge is exposed to the life-threatening disturbances due to these high energy, high temperature phenomena occurring on the solar surface, and these will become more and more important in the space age to come. ‘“)Guest article by Y. Ogawara (Institute of Space & Astronautical Y. Uchida (Department of Astronomy. University of Tokyo).
Science,
Sagamihara)
and
61
6.5. ISY CONFERENCE IN MIJNICHiJ1
Nearly 2000 participants attended the International Conference on Space in the Service of the Changing Earth. It was the first highlight of the KY, when scientists from over 30 countries debated a wide spectrum of applications for crewed and automatic spaceflight. No-one would now deny that present-day problems of environment and climate must be tackled and solved on a global level. Space takes a prominent place in this. Satellites are on the spot to speed up progress in the all-important fields of research into climate, protection of the environment and preservation of natural resources. Most of the cont~butions from science, politics and industry also revolved around these topics. (i~From ESA News Release,
60
3 April
1902
The ISY conference emphatically confirmed Europe’s important role in international cooperation in space. The conference made extensive and important contributions to this position. Held in parallel with the conference, the ISY Space Show welcomed over 10 000 visitors during the first few days. This show provided the genera1 public with a lay persons’s view of the vast scope of space operations in Europe and the rest of the world and received great acclaim from the people of Munich.
6.6. NEW VISTAS OF SOLAR PHYSICS OPENED UP BY YOHKOHf6’
1. Introduction The Sun seen in visible light is a very steady and mild object, giving us warmth and light, and indeed giving life to all terrestrial creatures including mankind. However, it is not so if we go into space and look at it in different wavelength bands of the electromagnetic spectrum, such as ultraviolet, X-ray, gamma-ray and radio. The Sun shows a spectacularly complex face, for example, in the X-ray range. It is not at all steady, and various kinds of highly dynamical events occur in its million-degree outer atmosphere (the corona), producing energetic particles up to hundreds of MeV, and superhot plasmas of tens of millions of degrees, emitting deadly X-ray radiation etc. increasing by a factor of more than a thousand in a few minutes and lasting hours. These are the so-called solar flares. High-velocity plasma outflow of the order of 300-800 km s-’ is expelled continually from the Sun, the solar wind, sometimes punctuated by colossal ejecta carrying mass exceeding hundreds of billions of tons. Such a rough face on our mother Sun is not exceptional in the community of the stars in the cosmos, and much greater versions of such activity have also been found in other stars and in objects of galactic scale. The Sun, however, is the only object on which such phenomena can be seen in spatially-resolved form, due to its proximity; the investigation of these events on the Sun is of fundamental importance in guiding our studies of these astrophysical phenomena in the cosmos. The investigation of these solar phenomena is also of growing concern as a vital factor of our terrestrial environment. The solar-system space into which mankind will eventually emerge is exposed to the life-threatening disturbances due to these high energy, high temperature phenomena occurring on the solar surface, and these will become more and more important in the space age to come. ‘“)Guest article by Y. Ogawara (Institute of Space & Astronautical Y. Uchida (Department of Astronomy. University of Tokyo).
Science,
Sagamihara)
and
61