Reports from Mysore

Reports from Mysore

The project was born with the aim of bringing astronomy to the remote places in the world which other outreach programmes have never touched before. We go one step further by pursuing a cultural exchange as well, to demonstrate that the sky is for everyone, that we all share it. We can all learn about its wonders in a fun way together. The GalileoMobile project debuted in 2009 with a trip into the heart of the Andes, shared by three different countries in South America: Chile, Bolivia, and Peru [1, 2 and 3]. The same year GalileoMobile was designated as a Special Project within the IYA2009 framework. The second expedition took place in the Amazon region of the district of Pando, Bolivia in June 2012 [4]. Since then the project has continued its efforts to expand to other countries.

We published reports from many of the scientific events of the 2012 Mysore Scientific Assembly in the last issue of SRT. Here, we continue with additional reports from the Assembly received by the editorial team, including a report on an Associated Event and a review of activities submitted by a Scientific Commission Chair.

Khagol Rath: GalileoMobile meets rural India—A COSPAR 2012 Associated Event [Report by María Dasí Espuig, on behalf of the GalileoMobile team] GalileoMobile is an itinerant science education project that brings astronomy closer to young people around the world, particularly in areas that have little access to outreach programmes. It is a purely non-profit initiative run by 19 volunteers from all over the world. The team is composed of students and young post-docs in astronomy related topics as well as one expert in communication and two in outreach.

In the following sections we describe the key aspects of the Khagol Rath expedition to India in July 2012, namely the plan of the schools visited, the activities performed in each of them, the plans for the follow-up activities in the coming years and the production of a photo book to create awareness of our project.

Figure 1. Students during the opening talk with the Earthball in the Government Higher Primary School, Thondegere

2

The Khagol Rath expedition

scientific research with GalileoMobile activities, and COSPAR was one of the main sponsors and gave us the opportunity to present the outcome of this expedition during the outreach session of the conference as an Assembly Associated Event.

The Khagol Rath expedition marks the first step of GalileoMobile outside of South America, taking place in the rural areas between Bangalore and Mysore, India. The 39th COSPAR Scientific Assembly was held in Mysore on 14-22 July 2012 [5].

The GalileoMobile team joined forces with the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) [6], and the Association in Bangalore of Amateur Astronomers (ABAA) [7] via the Jawaharlal

We chose the Khagol Rath expedition to take place right before, from 2 to 13 July 2012, for two main reasons: The GalileoMobile team members were able to combine their personal

Figure 2. Road map of the Khagol Rath expedition: each GalileoMobile logo tag indicates a village that we visited 3

globe [13], and other posters, postcards, and booklets, to give continuity to our visits. These donations were made possible not only by GalileoMobile, but by the project ‘You are Galileo!’ [11], UNAWE, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) [14], the IIA, and the Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium.

Nehru Planetarium [8], to carry out workshops for school teachers and astronomical activities for children. Six GalileoMobile team members collaborated with 15 locals from the latter institutions, including researchers and PhD students in astrophysics, university students in physics and engineering, and amateur astronomers (for a full list we refer to our report available in [9]). The team travelled in a minibus and visited 12 schools in rural villages. Figure 2 shows the route followed and Table 1 lists the names of the villages visited. We exposed a total of 102 teachers and 1,680 students to astronomy.

During this expedition we wanted to pay special attention to the teachers. Therefore, we

The schools were selected by the local collaborators before the trip with the input of our team members, who requested schools in villages where astronomical activities have never or rarely been carried out (for a complete list, see our report in [9]). Activities

Figure 3. One of our team members (left) explaining the construction of the mountable telescope to the teachers in Mysugar High School, Mysugar

We carried out several activities in every school we visited. Our daily agenda is summarised in Table 2. After arrival in the school, we started by giving an opening talk to both students and staff. The opening talk is conceived as an ice-breaker talk and lasts for about 45 minutes (see Fig. 1). It is designed as a virtual trip beginning in the school and gradually moving away to the local state, the country, the Earth, the planets of the Solar System, the galaxy and beyond.

carried out short teacher sessions of around 2 hours to explain how to use the donated materials and worked together with the teachers on 4 to 5 hands-on activities from our handbook of activities. Figure 3 shows one of our team members explaining how to mount the 'You are Galileo!' telescope to two teachers. The handbook comprises 21 activities covering various topics such as the Moon, the Sun, the orbits, other planets in the solar system, galaxies, constellations, and light. They were chosen from different online resources (e.g. UNAWE, NASA, GTTP [15]) based on their use of cheap and locally available materials and being fun and interactive.

The talk is meant to be very interactive so that we ask questions to the audience to involve them in the virtual trip as well as to have an idea of their knowledge of the basics of our local cosmos. This is important because it helps us to adjust the standard of the activities. We also make extensive use of visual and tactile material such as colourful astronomical images, the Earthball from Universe Awareness (UNAWE) [10], and a puppet to engage the audience. After the opening talk we hand over some donation material.

The GalileoMobile team adapted them to include more content on the concepts to be studied in each of the activities and classified them according to level, i.e. destined for primary or secondary education. This permitted us to choose in advance 4 to 5 activities accordingly per day. However, since this classification may not be valid worldwide, we left some space for improvisation to adjust.

We donated to each school a mountable 4 cm telescope [11] with a tripod, a hard copy of our handbook of activities [12], an inflatable Earth 4

After the lunch break we performed the same activities we did during the teacher sessions with the students (see Fig. 4). In most cases the teachers were the ones taking the lead while having us only as support (Activities session). We are confident that they were able to comprehend the activities fully and will be able to repeat the activities on their own in future lessons.

activities as done by the GalileoMobile team. We will try to support them whenever possible to organise such trips in the future, and provide them with our handbook of activities both in English and Kannada, the local language in the state of Karnataka. The Kannada version of the Handbook was done by Ms. Geetha Kydala Ganesha, a student from the Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium, and we expect it to be completely finished by mid-2013. This way, our local collaborators can bring a hard copy of the Kannada version of the handbook to the schools in their future visits. During the COSPAR 2012 meeting, our team met many students and researchers from different organisations and institutes who are strongly involved in astronomy outreach programmes in India. They are highly motivated in collaborating with us aiming for a longer expedition in other regions of India. This idea is welcomed by the GalileoMobile team and as a first step, we have decided to translate our handbook of activities in Hindi, one of the official languages of India. The expedition should be planned for the winter season to take advantage of the favourable weather conditions for sky observations.

Figure 4. Students building sundials in Government High School, Halgur Hobli Malavalli Taluk

Follow-up activities Follow-up activities in the visited schools are of the utmost importance since this will give continuity to our efforts during this expedition. For this reason we keep in contact with our local collaborators, who have the potential to visit the schools again.

Photo book From our expedition in 2009 we produced a documentary [16]. The documentary proved a great success wherever we screened it and therefore, we believe that such a visual product is a very powerful way to share our experiences and the interaction between different cultures. It gives visibility to our project and inspires other people around the world to undertake similar initiatives.

During the expedition, the local collaborators aided us in the visits in two ways: carrying out or supporting activities, and translating from the local language (Kannada) to English and vice versa with the children. Their full potential will unfold in time, since they will be the ones to do the follow-up activities. Some of the collaborators from the amateur astronomer group ABAA have planned one visit every 6 months to monitor the impact of our visit, to do night-time observations both with their own telescopes and with the donated one, and to perform other hands-on activities from our handbook. Also, the collaborators from the IIA have expressed their interest in repeating such experiences once per year.

The product chosen for this expedition is a photo book. The main reason behind this is its sustainability and low budget requirements. The book is chosen to illustrate the interaction with our local collaborators and the people we met, the typical day of a travelling member, the activities and teacher session in schools we visited, and a typical day of the students attending our activities. The photographic album will be complemented with short captions or anecdotes written by the members travelling, the local collaborators joining us,

In general, the local collaborators have also shown interest in visiting other schools from the same area to carry out astronomical 5

References

and if possible, by some of the students and other people the team met while travelling. At the present time, the team is in the postproduction process. We plan to have the final product by the end of the year 2013 and it will be distributed, free, electronically. Day

Village/District

2

Bengaluru

3

Malur

4

Srinivaspur

5

Thondagere

6

Kunigal

7

Alanahalli

8

SUNDAY

9

Koppa

10

Ramanagara

11

KM Doddi

12

Channapatna

13

Mandya

[1] International Year of Astronomy 2009 (IYA2009), www.astronomy2009.org [2] The International Year of Astronomy 2009 (IYA2009) final report, p. 268-282, www.astronomy2009.org/resources/documents /detail/ iya2009_final_report/ [3] The GalileoMobile 2009 – 2011 report, http://galileo-mobile.org/files/20092011_Project_Report.pdf [4] Report on the expedition to Pando, http://galileo-mobile.org/files/Pando_Report. pdf [5] Committee on Space Research 2012, India (COSPAR 2012), www. cospar2012india.org [6] Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), www.iiap.res.in [7] Association of Bangalore Amateur Astronomers (ABAA), http://abaaonline.blogspot.de/ [8] Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium, www.taralaya.org/planetarium.htm

Table 1. List of villages visited in July 2012, as indicated in Fig. 2 Time

Session

9:30 – 10:00

Arrival at school

10:00 – 10:45

Opening talk

11:00 – 13:00

Teacher

13:00 – 14:00

Lunch

14:00 – 16:00

Activities

[9] Report on the Khagol Rath expedition, http://galileo-mobile.org/files/Khagol_Rath _report.pdf [10] Universe Awareness (UNAWE), www.unawe.org [11] Handy 4cm telescope kit (Hoshi-noTechou Inc.), telescope-e.html#hoshinotechou kimigali.jp/ [12] The GalileoMobile Handbook of Activities, http://galileo-mobile.org/files/ Handbook_GalileoMobile_English_PF.pdf

Table 2. Agenda of the typical day at a school

Acknowledgments

[13] Earthball from UNAWE, www.unawe.org/resources/education/ the_earth_is_a_ball_guide_109/

The Khagol Rath expedition was supported and financed by the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) [17], the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, the Infosys Science Foundation [18], the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research [19], the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics (NORDITA) [20], the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics [21], the 'You are Galileo!' project, the Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium, and the European Southern Observatory.

[14] European Southern Observatory (ESO), http://www.eso.org [15] Galileo Teacher Training Programme (GTTP), www.galileoteachers.org [16] Under the same sky (Bajo un mismo cielo), GalileoMobile documentary 6

[17] Committee on Space Research (COSPAR), www.cospar-assembly.org

development could also provide facilities for future microgravity science.

[18] The Infosys Science Foundation (ISF), www.infosys-science-foundation.com

Due to the heterogeneity of the presentations in the SC G Mysore session, here, attention is focused on a few widely presented subjects, including vibrational phenomena in liquids, and thermo-capillary flow and bubbles. Five presentations in Mysore were devoted to the behaviour of liquids under vibrations and four of them were given by members of the ESA Topical Team, VIPIL (VIbrational Phenomena In Liquids). The project, primarily supported by ESA in the frame of the ELIPS programme, unifies the broad International community from Europe (Belgium, France, and Spain), Russia, Japan and the USA. The VIPIL research experiments are going to be performed on the ISS. The objective is to examine the convective motions generated by vibrations in liquid systems with non-uniform density. The VIPIL project focuses on the analysis of instabilities in systems composed of two layers of miscible/immiscible liquids. Different modes of instability can be induced by vibrations parallel and perpendicular to the interface in miscible and non-miscible liquids.

[19] Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS), www.mps.mpg.de/ [20] Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics (NORDITA), www.nordita.org/ [21] Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics (MPA), www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/

Fluid Dynamics Research in Microgravity: A review of COSPAR Scientific Commission G [Report by V. Shevtsova, Chair, COSPAR Scientific Commission G] Physical science research in microgravity is aimed at understanding the laws of physics and chemistry in the reduced-gravity environment as applied to materials science, fluid physics, combustion and biotechnology. The use of microgravity conditions decreases buoyancy effects and improves our fundamental understanding of the processes involved. Various microgravity platforms exist, with varying weightlessness duration from which we can conduct scientific experiments.

The VIPIL Project is an extension of the IVIDIL (Influence Vibrations on Diffusion in Liquids) experiment which was successfully performed on the ISS in 2009-2010 by an International team including Belgian, Russian and Canadian scientists. After 55 runs of the experiment, researchers found that only large amplitude vibrations caused impacts, such as orbital debris avoidance manoeuvres or docking/undocking.

Typical durations of weightlessness of the facilities (see Fig. 1) include the following: drop towers 5 to 9 s; parabolic flights 22 s, sounding rockets 6 to 12 min and the ISS. Recently a new platform type has appeared–the cubesat. A single cubesat is too small to support significant scientific research. However, when combining a large number of cubesats launched at the same time into a network, in addition to the educational value, fundamental scientific questions can be addressed which are inaccessible otherwise. In addition, we can see that a new generation of suborbital vehicles is coming; and that

The more common minor movements that are part of daily life aboard the ISS did not influence the diffusion in samples. The SODIIVIDIL experiment has clearly shown that onboard jitters do not affect measurement of mass transport coefficients in liquid systems without gas/liquid interface but imposed vibrations with constant frequency and amplitude affect

7

Figure 1. Some microgravity platforms accessible to scientists

heat mass transfer. The effect of such vibrations is somewhat similar to buoyancy. An example of the results from the IVIDIL experiments is given in Fig. 2.

optimize mixing. Another widely discussed topic of Commission G at Mysore was related to hydrothermal (Marangoni) instabilities caused by nonuniform surface tension in liquid bridges, mimicking the crystal growth process. In direct engineering applications, Marangoni convection is observed in crystal growth, welding processes, evaporators, condensers, film making, etc. The Marangoni convection plays an important role in various aspects of the micro and nano technologies when surface force dominates over the body force.

On the one hand, this research area is very important for fluid processing in space, space enabling operations and even life support. Indeed, vibrations can help prevent astronaut bone loss in microgravity. On the other hand, Earth science will benefit due to spin-off applications such as micro mixing, lab-on-achip operations and so forth. Many micro- and nano-fluidic devices require rapid mixing of reactants to enhance reaction rates in biochemical assays.

The series of experiments, called the Marangoni Experiment in Space (MEIS), started in 2008 in the Japanese Experimental Module “KIBO” at the ISS. Two series of experiments, MEIS-1 and 2, were conducted

Nevertheless, the inevitable low Reynolds numbers associated with such devices means that turbulent mixing is suppressed. Diffusive time- and length scales for good mixing are also usually impractical, leading to considerable interest in devising strategies to 8

Figure 2. The concentration field across the cell created by thermodiffusion while heated from above, without vibrations (left) and with vibrations (right)

in 2008 and 2009, respectively. Currently, the third series of the MEIS experiments are taking place at the ISS and two more are planned. The last experiment in the series, called JEREMI, will be prepared by a large international team including Japanese, European, American and Canadian scientists.

Mysore Assembly.

Fundamental questions which these experiments should answer are: (a) What are the conditions that determine the onset of unsteady (or oscillatory) convection in a liquid bridge? (b) What are the characteristics of unsteady, three-dimensional flow and temperature fields? (c) What are the mechanisms that are responsible for the formation of dynamic particle accumulation structures (PASs)?

[Report by A. Yau]

Space and Ground-based Studies of the Coupled Solar Wind-MagnetosphereIonosphere-Thermosphere System (C1.3) Session C1.3 was devoted to space- and ground-based studies of the coupling of the thermosphere and ionosphere to the magnetosphere and solar wind. The session underscores the theme of mass, energy and momentum transfer between the solar wind and magnetosphere and the ionosphere and thermosphere, in which the transfer occurs primarily along the auroral field lines and results in the aurora and disturbance neutral wind. The transfer of energy from the solar wind and magnetosphere to the ionosphere and thermosphere occurs primarily but not exclusively at high and mid-latitudes. Following the passage of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and other solar particles, the aurora brightens, ring current intensifies, geomagnetic storms occur, sub-auroral electric fields and disturbance neutral winds intensify, and ionospheric conductance and total electron content change dramatically. Heliospheric, magnetospheric and ionospheric satellites and ground-based facilities provide a powerful set

Bubbles in micro- or zero- gravity show some striking behaviour. An interesting presentation demonstrated observations of the vapour jets formed in a uniform gravity-induced pressure gradient, modulated aboard parabolic flights. A team from Switzerland has performed a systematic study of the vapour jets observed while varying the maximal bubble radius, liquid viscosity, liquid pressure, and pressure gradient. Bubble collapse under variable gravity has been compared and analysed. This brief report has outlined the nature of the subject and listed a selection of topical areas that were presented and discussed at the 9

of synergistic tools to study the variety of underlying wave and particle processes over a wide range of spatial and temporal scales in the coupled solar wind-magnetosphere-ionosphere -thermosphere system.

Global and Regional Representation of Ionospheric Peak parameters for Space Weather Applications (C4.1) [Report by Dieter Bilitza] The session on “Global and Regional Representation of Ionospheric Peak parameters for Space Weather Applications”, held during the 39th COSPAR Scientific Assembly that took place in Mysore, was organized by the COSPAR/URSI Working Group on the International Reference Ionosphere and was held on Sunday and Monday of the conference week. The session was divided into 6 subsections entitled: Topside and TEC in IRI, F Peak Modelling, Variation during Ionospheric Storms, Representing Solar Minimum Conditions, Improving IRI, and New Inputs for IRI. The session was well attended (40-60) and consisted of 27 talks and two posters with presenters from Austria, Czech Republic, India, Iran, Italy, Japan, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Uganda, Ukraine, and the USA. A business meeting of the IRI Working Group was held on the day after the session and was attended by 18 participants.

This session included five half-day oral sessions that featured 10 solicited and 30 contributed talks, as well as a poster session of about 10 poster papers. All five oral sessions were very well attended, some drawing an attendance of up to about 150. Under the session theme, the solicited talks covered a wide range of topics, including quiet and disturbed solar wind in the new solar cycle (J.G. Luhmann), deformation of the Earth's magnetosphere under low Alfven-machnumber solar wind conditions (M.N. Nishino), wave-particle interactions in solar windmagnetosphere-ionosphere coupling (I. Cairns), ion and electron beams at Saturn and their relationship to infrared auroral arcs (S.V. Badman), magnetosphere ionosphere coupling via field line resonances (R. Rankin), dayside ionospheric processes and their effect on oxygen ion escape (W.K. Peterson), altitudinal response of global ionosphere to short-period recurrent geomagnetic activity during deep solar minimum (T.R. Sudarsanam), GPS observations of medium-scale travelling ionospheric disturbance (Y. Otsuka), GPS amplitude and phase scintillation associated with poleward moving Sun aligned arcs (T. Jayachandran), ionospheric modifications during the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake (J.Y. Liu), and all-sky imaging observations of substorm signatures on low latitude thermospheric airglow (V. L. Narayanan).

Topside and TEC Work continues on the Vary-Chap model for the topside electron density profile. The latest results were presented by Reinisch et al.. (U Mass Lowell, USA) based on ISIS topside sounder data. Several papers presented comparisons of IRI-TEC predictions with GPS-TEC measurements from the Indian subcontinent. Of special interest are the comparative studies in the equatorial anomaly region which found good agreement with the exception of the sunrise time period (Surat station: Karia et al.., S V National Institute of Technology; Palehua station: Devi et al., Mar Thoma College, Kerala). A study with Korean GPS-TEC data showed that the winter anomaly appears in the GPS TEC only during the solar maximum period, in contrast to the IRI estimations in which it shows up regardless of the solar activity. Kakinami et al.. (Hokkaido University, Japan) constructed empirical models of the topside electron density and temperature measurements by the DEMETER satellite. But they also point out that

Overall, there was a good balance between the theoretical and observational contributions, and the session served as an effective forum for highlighting the many significant recent scientific results in the COSPAR community on multi-scale solar wind-magnetosphereionosphere-upper atmosphere.

10

session. Araujo-Pradere et al. (University of Colorado, USA; presented by Fuller-Rowell) showed that IRI overestimated the F peak density and height as well as the TEC during this very low and extended minimum. Bilitza et al. (George Mason University, USA) presented comparisons with ionosonde and C/NOFS measurements and investigated the possible causes and remedies for the overestimation by IRI.

DEMETER densities are systematically lower and temperatures higher than measurements by other satellites and also than IRI predictions and recommend using relative variations instead of absolute values. Truhlik et al.. (Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Czech Republic) discussed ways to improve the current IRI ion composition and electron temperature models in the topside ionosphere based on newer data and with special regard to low solar activity and to the extension to the plasmasphere.

General The IRI Working Group submitted a proposal for a session during the 2014 COSPAR General Assembly in Moscow, Russia entitled “Improved representation of the ionosphere in real-time and retrospective mode”. The 2013 IRI Workshop will be held at the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olzstyn, Poland from 24 to 28 June. The Main Organizer is Andrzej Krankowski and the special topic will be GNSS inputs for IRI. Selected papers from the 2009 IRI Workshop in Kagoshima, Japan have been published in two dedicated issues of Earth, Planets, and Space.

F Peak Parameters Ratovsky et al. (Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics, Irkutsk, Russia) presented local empirical models for the peak parameters foF2 and hmF2 based on validated ionogram data recorded by Digisondes in Norilsk, Irkutsk, and Hainan (China). Nagatsuma et al. (National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Japan) described the status and data of the NICT network of ionosondes (Wakkanai, Kokubunji, Yamagawa, Okinawa and the South-East Asia LowLatitude IOnospheric Network, SEALION). These data extending from low to middle latitudes with a multi-year data record are a valuable data source for improvements of the F peak models for IRI. Ionospheric behaviour during storm recovery phase was discussed by Buresova et al. (Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Czech Republic) and compared with the predictions by IRI and other models pointing to significant deficiencies particularly for the peak height hmF2.

Papers from the 2010 IRI session during the COSPAR General Assembly in Bremen, Germany will soon be published in a special issue of Advances in Space Research (ASR). Another special IRI issue of ASR with papers from the 2011 IRI Workshop in Hermanus, South Africa is now in the reviewing stage. The IRI business meeting on July 17 was attended by 15 participants. Several improvements to the IRI model were discussed based on the presentations at this meeting and prior workshops. A primary focus is the height of the F peak, hmF2, which in IRI is represented through its relationship to the propagation factor M(3000)F2. New models were proposed by Altadill et al. (Ebro, Spain) and by Gulyaeva et al. (IZMIRAN, Russia) and will be included as new options in the next version of IRI-2012. It was also found that the current hmF2-M(3000)F2 model predicts unrealistically low values during the extreme 2008/2009 solar minimum, because data for such conditions were not available when the model was developed. Efforts are underway to improve the model for very low solar

McKinnell et al. (South Africa National Space Agency, South Africa) reported on the continued efforts by her group on the planned inclusion of their NeuralNetwork models for the F peak parameters in IRI. COSMIC and GPS data were used by Irina Zakharenkova (IZMIRAN, Kaliningrad, Russia) to study the global variations of the F peak parameters and the plasmaspheric electron content with special emphasis on time periods and regions where shortcomings of the IRI model are found. The performance of the IRI model during the recent highly unusual solar minimum was discussed in several presentations during this 11

Session 1 on the morning of 19 July 2012 was chaired by Prof. V. Sonwalkar which included one solicited talk by Prof. P. K Mahnoharan and oral talks by W. Scales, A. Bhatt and A.K. Singh. The speakers discussed results about interplanetary disturbances, space weather, multi-instrument co-ordinated measurements from Greenland and the 22 July 2009 Total Solar Eclipse observations. After the coffee break, Session 2 was chaired by Dr. R. Singh with contributions from Y. Omura (solicited), H. Ohya, A. Shindin and N. Parihar. The speakers discussed results related to Whistlermode Chorus emissions, Tweek radioatmospherics, the HAARP experiment and Nightglow observations.

activities. It was also pointed out that ITU and HF users of IRI are still very interested in a representation of not only hmF2 but also M(3000)F2 because it can be directly applied to some of their applications. John Bosco Habarulema (Uganda) was proposed and accepted as a new member for the IRI Working Group. He has worked extensively on TEC and IRI related research and was one of the organizers of the 2011 IRI Workshop in Hermanus and is co-editor of the ASR issue with papers from the Hermanus meeting. His main field of interest is in improving the predictability of TEC using neural networks under all conditions, and as this is of increasing interest to the IRI group will bring this expertise to the group.

Session 3 was chaired by Dr. J. Lichtenberger. The session had one solicited talk by Dr. D. Pallamraju on investigations of the high latitude upper atmosphere using combined radar and optical probing measurements. The talk was followed by three oral contributions by B. Veenadhari, W. Scales, and A. Jorgensen on DEMETER observations during the 22 July 2009 solar eclipse, modelling extraction of VLF energy from localized ion ring beams for space-based active experiments and comparing electric field models, respectively. Session 4 was chaired by Dr. W. Scales with one solicited talk by Prof. V. Sonwalkar and three contributed talks. This session covered recent results on Whistler- and Z- mode radio sounding in magnetosphere, Schuman resonances, electron density distribution and solar plasma corrections of radio signals and earthquake quake precursor studies from DEMETER observations.

There are no plans for a dedicated issue with papers from this meeting. Papers can be either submitted as standard ASR papers or can be considered for our next special issue, which is planned for the papers from the 2013 IRI Workshop. This Workshop will be held at the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Poland from 24 to 28 June 2013 (MSO: Andrzej Krankowski). The IRI homepage is at http://IRI.gsfc.nasa.gov/.

Active Experiments Related to Space Plasma (C5.1-D4.1) [Report by Rajesh Singh, B. Veenadhari, Wayne Scales, Abhay K. Singh] The C5.1-D4.1 event was organized for two days on 19-20 July 2012 with 28 oral and 25 poster contributions in the session. The main aim of this four half-day event was to provide a platform in the COSPAR assembly where researchers could discuss their latest findings related to active experiment results from the studies of space plasma. The contributions received focussed on experiments, observations, theoretical and numerical modelling techniques to study space plasma environment comprising ionosphere, plasmasphere and magnetosphere.

Session 5 was scheduled on the morning of 20 July 2012 and was chaired by Dr. A. Collier instead of Prof. Y. Omura. The session had one solicited and three contributed talks. The solicited talk by Dr. J. Lichtenberger focused on recent developments related to the automatic detection of nose frequency and time of initiating sferic of whistlers to be used for plasmasphere diagnostics. The contributed talks discussed low-latitude whistler observation experiments, the status of PLASMON, Whistler occurrence dependence on geomagnetic activity. The following

The lecture schedule of the four half-day event was spread over eight scientific sessions. 12

Session 6 was chaired by Dr. A.K. Singh with four contributions and speakers who showed the results on the status of the CubeSTAR satellite, the SURA facility, ionospheric effects of HF-heating and new results on frequency modulation ionospheric pumping at EISCAT

interesting new perspective, which awaits an explanation, either as helio- or astrophysical phenomenon.

The last two sessions, 7 and 8, were chaired by Dr. B. Veenadhari and Dr. A.K. Singh. These two sessions had eight oral talks with a special mention for the talk given by Prof. C. Uberio on the interesting topic of ‘Sound of Space’: Harmony with Raga Melodies of Indian Classical Music.

[Report by I. Mann, T.P. O’Brien]

Acceleration Processes in the Magnetosphere (D3.4) We presided over a dynamic session examining the active acceleration, and competing loss, processes in the magnetosphere with a total of 20 oral and 6 poster presentations. The session was well-attended, and contributions provided not only an overview of the exciting upcoming NASA Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP) mission, expected to herald a new era of discovery in radiation belt science, but also the latest contributions from wave-particle interaction studies with existing missions especially the NASA THEMIS and ESANASA Cluster missions, and also from supporting geosynchronous and HEO satellites as well as from ground-based assets.

The 28 talks in the C5.1 session, spread across 2 days, were immensely successful with a healthy attendance and with intense discussion and comments on presentations. The session was run smoothly with only two speakers dropping out. There were also 25 poster presentations.

Acceleration of Anomalous Cosmic Rays (D1.3)

A highlight was the presentation of data from the recently calibrated THEMIS SST coincidence channels which allow studies of MeV energy radiation belt electrons in the inner magnetosphere without the contamination arising from other penetrating particles. This promises to be a very important dataset for radiation belt science. Attention was paid to the form and geoeffectiveness of solar wind drivers, including interplanetary coronal mass ejections and stream interface regions, and to the magnetospheric response in terms of ULF, whistler, electromagnetic ion cyclotron (EMIC), and plasmaspheric hiss waves. Examples of the resulting wave-particle acceleration, transport, and loss, especially as applied to the radiation belts during magnetic storms (including superstorms) was the dominant theme.

[Report by K. Scherer] In recent years the Voyager spacecraft has produced a wealth of information about the state and energetic particle populations in the heliosheath. In the D1.3 session, reviews of the state-of-the-art of modulation and acceleration models were discussed. In particular, new methods have had to be developed because the classical diffusive-convective approaches are no longer valid in the vicinity of the compressed sector structure. In addition, alternative acceleration mechanisms, when the heliospheric magnetic field decays into "bubbles", were discussed. The observational data presented showed some features which were not yet present in the models. It will be interesting to see how the discrepancies will be resolved in the future and hopefully presented in the next COSPAR Assembly.

Papers examined the response to various adiabatic invariant conserving interactions, as well as cases where all 3 invariants might be broken by pitch angle scattering on split drift shells, as well as an examination of the effect of cold plasma densities in the plasmasphere and plasmaspheric plumes. One important and

In particular, the heliospheric tail-anisotropy of energetic particles in the TeV range observed by the large area telescopes, like IceCube, Milargo, or the Tibet Airshower are an 13

interesting conclusion was from a statistical study of EMIC waves in plumes with Cluster, which concluded that EMIC waves are not in fact significantly more likely to occur in plumes than in other magnetospheric regions in contrast to prior expectations. Papers also examined the 3-D structure of ULF wave modes excited during storms, empirical models for plasmaspheric density, as well as non-linear structures in the solar wind. Instrument development and science targets for future planetary missions, including contributions in relation to the Jovian and Neptune systems, were also covered in this session.

first talk. Other talks in this part of the session discussed different sources of the magnetopause displacements like the tilt angle of the Earth dipole (J. Lu), IMF cone angle or influence of the IMF vertical component (M. Verigin). The second part of the session was devoted to the space between the bow shock and magnetopause–magnetosheath and discussed magnetosheath dynamics and their connection with upstream or intrinsic magnetosheath patterns. The solicited lecture of E. Antonova connected turbulence in this region with the pressure exerted on the magnetopause, whereas E. Amata (whose talk was given by S. Savin) presented statistical investigations of supersonic jets observed within the magnetosheath. These jets have been known of for more than 10 years but their nature is still unknown. Case studies of these jets presented in other talks and posters revealed that they can significantly contribute to the dynamics of the whole region including fast motion and huge deformations of both boundaries. The solicited lecture given by S. Ericson turned attention to magnetopause processes such as K-H instability and reconnection in rolled-up vortices.

Towards Understanding of Anomalous Dynamics of Magnetospheric Boundaries (D3.5) [Report by Z. Nemecek and S. Savin] The formation and dynamics of the bow shock and magnetopause is expected to be well understood but there are a lot of observations that cannot be explained in terms of present theories. The D3.5 session focused on a broad range of phenomena connected with anomalous motion of these boundaries and revealed the theoretical and experimental investigations of magnetosheath processes as a key to better understanding of solar wind– magnetosphere interaction.

Poster presentations discussing topics that could not be touched in oral contributions due to the limited time span of the session were very interesting. Among them, experimental investigations of processes in the far tail (K. Grygorov) and the study of the influence of plasmaspheric plumes on the magnetopause formation (J. Simunek) were of particular interest. Other posters presented investigations of the magnetosheath turbulence on different spatial and temporal scales (L. Kozak, O. Chugunova) or an attempt to develop a new MHD model of the magnetosheath region (P. Dobreva).

The event was scheduled as a half-day session divided into two parts: Dynamics of Boundary Motion and Sources of Boundary Dynamics. The solicited lecture of J. Safrankova reviewed a number of observations of anomalous locations of the bow shock and magnetopause and pointed out the importance of the IMF orientation and especially abrupt changes of this orientation. The conclusions drawn from this lecture were supported with two poster presentations (G. Granko, A. Goncharov). The second solicited speaker in this part of the session, H. Zhang, unfortunately could not come due to visa problems but the main points of her talk were available in written format. The main conclusion was that the foreshock variations of the magnetic field can be as important as the IMF rotations reported in the

The session was well attended in spite of the aforementioned visa problems and, in the concluding discussion, the participants recommended the topics of the session for the next COSPAR Scientific Assembly.

14

there is no jet in the soft state. Winds only show up in the intermediate and soft states; the wind is off when the jet is on. In the hard state, even quiescent state matches the LR-Lx relation.

Radio Meets Hard X-rays: Two Skies in Comparison (E1.1) [Report by H. Krimm] Here, we summarise the discussion and results presented in session E1.1 held at the 2012 COSPAR Mysore Assembly.

N. Roy presented a talk on “Radio and X-ray Observations of Novae”. The EVLA nova team has observed all galactic novae. Novae are white dwarfs accreting from a main sequence or high-mass companion. There are ~35/yr in the galaxy. Novae are good nearby labs for accretion/ejection physics. They could be SN Ia progenitors. There is much accreting mass, but there is a net mass loss. Mass of WD in cataclysmic variables (CVs) is larger than in non-CVs.

G. Bicknell presented a talk entitled “Connection between Radio and High Energy Emission in AGN”. Black hole power is portioned among the disk emission, coronal emission and jets and winds. There are two main emission mechanisms, Comptonization of soft disk photons by the hot corona and synchrotron or Inverse Compton from the jets. The fundamental plane for black hole emission log(LR)/log(Lx) (radio vs. X-ray luminosity) holds over many orders of magnitude and is related to black hole mass.

B.C. Joshi talked about “Radio Emission from Neutron Stars and their environment in relation with associated high energy emission”. Rotation-powered pulsars derive power from rotational spin down. We have detected 1800 regular and 250 msec rotation-powered pulsars. They have a highly stable periodicity and coherent non-thermal, highly polarized radio emission. msec pulsars have low B field, and magnetars, AXPs and SGRs have high B field. 46 such pulsars have been detected using Fermi.

F. La Franca et al. gave a presentation “On the AGN radio luminosity distribution and the black hole fundamental plane”. X-ray luminosity is directly related (via bolometric corrections) to black hole accretion. The radio emission originates mainly from the jet and could play a relevant role in AGN/galaxy feedback. Massive galaxies evolve more rapidly than low-mass galaxies. X-rays (representing kinetic power) and radio (representing accretion) tell the same story. V. La Parole presented, for G. Cusumano, a talk on “The Palermo Swift-BAT hard X-ray catalogue. Results after 66 months of sky survey”. There are ~1,400 source candidates at a 4.8-sigma threshold, then ~200 more from searching on the residual map, plus ~100 more transient and variable sources. Some 1,150 are associated with Swift/XRT or archival sources with ~200 associations to Simbad sources. Of the total, 49% are extragalactic, 15% galactic, 12% unclassified (correlated, but counterpart unknown) and 23% are unassociated.

M. Chernyakova gave a presentation on “Superorbital modulation of X-ray emission from gamma-ray binary LSI +61303”. There are two competing models for high energy emission: colliding winds vs. micro-quasar. Only four X-ray binaries are regularly observed in the TeV. They are all young Be/O stars with high winds. There is an interaction of the relativistic wind with the stellar wind. The orbital phases of X-ray flares vary on a super orbital time scale. E1.1-0015 Constraining cosmic ray acceleration in supernova remnants through radio and X-ray observations

T. Belloni’s talk was entitled “More than a Disk: Accretion and Ejection in Black-Hole Transients”. For the soft state, the thin disk model is a spectacular success. The temperature drops as the hard state goes up the hardness-intensity diagram. There is a transition as QPOs start at the jet line, and

F. Bocchino talked about emission from accelerated particles that can be described by a relationship between dn/dp, where n is the number density and p the momentum. This is described by a power law involving a curvature parameter and a high energy cut-off. The cut-off is ~10 TeV, well below the "knee" 15

Extreme Magnetism Small Explorer (GEMS) was scheduled by NASA for a launch in 2014.

of the cosmic ray spectrum. S.C.-Y. Ng talked about “Pulsar Wind Nebulae from Radio to Hard X-rays”. A pulsar wind nebula (PWN) is driven from the pulsar rotational energy, <10% in radiation (mostly gamma-rays) and >90% in pulsar wind (accelerated particles). The PW terminates at a shock when it meets the supernova ejecta. The time scale for hard X-rays is ~300 years (from particles a short synchrotron cooling time). The flat radio spectrum is from particles with a long synch. cooling time.

When the programme of the event was defined the IXO proposal had been withdrawn in favour of the less ambitious but more realistic ATHENA, and in the de-scoping process the polarimeter did not survive. Even more seriously, only two months before the COSPAR Assembly NASA announced the decision to stop GEMs due to programmatic reasons. As a consequence, the presentation and discussion of future observations with GEMS could no longer be the backbone of the event, as originally planned. Yet the expectations that arose from IXO and GEMS resulted in the last few years in a burst of theoretical activity, with very interesting results that were discussed at the workshop.

The following talks were also given: J. Gelfand and P. Slane “Modelling the radio and hard X-ray emission of pulsar wind nebulae”, S. Tanaka “Model of Radio Emission from Spherically Symmetric Pulsar Wind Nebulae” and Y. Teraki and F. Takahara “The explanation of the spectral relation of radio range and Xray range”.

When compared with other subtopics of X-ray Astronomy, polarimetry is particularly suited to attack questions of fundamental physics. One crucial question is the study of matter near the horizon of black holes to probe effects of strong gravity and search for evidence of rotating objects. Nowadays the main source of information on both galactic and extragalactic accreting black holes is the spectroscopy of broad lines. Further data come from the spectroscopy of the continuum. It is interesting that even a small polarimetric mission can provide complementary data, mainly based on the rotation of the polarization angle with energy, with a clear difference in the amount of the effect between static and rotating black holes. So we can imagine a very attractive scenario in which the same physical quantity is derived from three almost independent measurements: a situation of over-determined parameters, unusual not only in these elusive objects.

X-ray Polarimetry in Astrophysics (E1.14) [Report by E. Costa] Polarimetry is widely recognized as a potentially very powerful tool to understand the physical and geometrical properties of Xray sources. Nonetheless, from the observational point of view this branch of Xray astronomy is still in a very early stage. The only dedicated mission flown so far—back in the 70s—is OSO-8 which, by using a Bragg polarimeter, provided a good measurement of the Crab Nebula polarization at 2.6 and 5.2 keV, plus a handful of meaningful upper limits. A few measurements were recently derived, at much higher energies, as a by-product of instruments designed for spectroscopy and imaging. About 10 years ago new and much more powerful techniques, based on the photoelectric effect in gas-filled detectors, were developed, renewing interest in the field. Indeed, when this event was conceived a polarimeter based on this technique was planned in the focus of IXO, a large international (NASA/ESA/JAXA) X-ray observatory. Moreover, the Gravity and

The phenomenology expected from neutron stars is always among the richest and most compelling for any programme of polarimetry. In every model polarimetric information is crucial to solve open problems and to disentangle geometric parameters, such as the mutual orientation between rotation and magnetic axes, from physical parameters, such 16

as the magnetic field. The class of magnetars is particularly interesting and it has been shown that the effects of vacuum polarization as predicted from QED should produce detectable phenomena.

polarimeter. These data are of great interest, also for their astrophysical implications, and triggered a lively discussion about the relative merits of instruments dedicated to polarimetry and instruments aimed at other goals, performing polarimetry as a by-product.

The role of polarimetry to study acceleration phenomena in shocks from cosmic explosive events, including GRBs and Solar Flares, has also been discussed. There is a general consensus that, because of the extreme physics and the highly asymmetric geometries, most classes of X-ray sources, when studied in detail, would show a significant amount of linear polarization.

The event lasted one day and the programme was very dense. It provided a good chance for the teams working on running or future experiments to exchange information and discuss technicalities of this difficult discipline. It also provided a chance for theoreticians and experimentalists to meet together. Theoreticians, despite the recent blows, were reassured by the lively experimental activity that their efforts may not be in vain. The determination of the experimentalists to push hard was certainly strengthened by the richness of astrophysical results expected, on theoretical ground, from X-ray polarimetry.

After the cancellation of GEMS, no focal plane X-ray polarimeter is presently foreseen in any future mission. The only proposed experiment is XIPE, proposed to ESA, which uses optics built for the never-flown Spectrum X-Gamma mission. A totally different approach is followed by Herman Marshall's experiment at MIT. It is probably the only instrument capable to study pulsars below 1 keV, where their Xray flux peaks. On the contrary, many hard Xray polarimeters, all based on the Compton effect, have been presented at the event. Some of them are only proposals, but others have already been approved. A hard X/soft Gamma polarimeter will be part of the ASTRO-H mission. POLAR, a scattering polarimeter based on plastic scintillator wires, is approved to be put on the Chinese space station. Other programs include XACT aboard a sounding rocket (US/Japan), with a first launch expected very soon, and a low energy scattering polarimeter in advanced study in India.

Astrophysics with High Mass X-ray Binaries (E1.5) [Report by B. Paul] Session E1.5 was held on 21 July 2012 at the COSPAR Scientific Assembly in Mysore. Though it was held near the very end of the Assembly, this event was very well attended and was very successful; 17 out of a total 18 scheduled talks were delivered and 15 posters were displayed. An interesting range of scientific topics were covered. Some scientific highlights of the meeting were: A detailed report on the observations of accreting pulsars with the Fermi-GBM instrument was presented. In a short span of four years some very interesting results have come out from the Fermi-GBM observations. Measurement of orbital decay in a binary system, accretion torque reversal in the unique X-ray pulsar 4U 1626-67, correlated accretion torque and X-ray luminosity in some pulsars and the absence of in some other systems were some of the highlights from the Fermi-GBM results.

Observations, in the soft gamma-ray band, come from the use in Compton mode of IBIS instrument of INTEGRAL. The Crab and Cyg X-1 have been shown to have high degrees of polarization. The best data, however, come from the IKAROS GAP experiment, a small instrument designed to perform polarimetry on a wide field. Polarization has been detected in the flux of GRBs, with a progressively increasing statistical significance and with a good control of systematic effects. These are the first data, since OSO-8, collected by an instrument designed and calibrated as a

A critical analysis of the very long term intensity variations of X-ray binaries, both in 17

Morphological, physiological, developmental, and genetic effects were discussed and put in context with aspects of perception and transduction events and differences between mechano- and gravi-stimulation. The session discussed experiments in microgravity and simulated microgravity, novel application of hypergravity stimuli and the understanding of these mechanisms in plants.

the X-ray band and in the optical band were presented. Both orbital and superorbital intensity variations were found in the long term optical light curves, the latter being interpreted as due to formation and depletion of the circum-stellar disk around the companion stars. The current status of the study of the broadband spectrum of accreting X-ray pulsars was critically examined and it was held that detailed modelling of the X-ray emission mechanisms in these systems and comparison with the rich observational data that is available will lead the way to better understanding of these systems. The same is true regarding study of the cyclotron resonance scattering features in high magnetic field accreting neutron star systems.

The talks started with an insightful description of new microscope technology that allows monitoring real time changes in the movement of plastids in living cells (Toyota et al.). The effects of phytohormones, especially ethylene action, were reported in mechanically challenged roots and focusing on auxin effects in the gravitropic reactions of cut flower shoots. The observation that anti-oxidants inhibit gravireaction, suggests that oxygendependent steps are linked with auxin-related growth control (Philosoph-Hadas et al.).

Our knowledge about HMXB systems in the SMC, which is rich with such systems, was reviewed in detail and comparisons were made with the population of HMXBs in the Milky Way.

A section of this session focused on geneexpression studies described high-resolution gene expression analyses in Brassica (Hasenstein et al.), a novel gene identified in Arabidopsis, and the comprehensive analysis of key elements that control the transduction steps of the gravitropic signals reinforced the role for amyloplasts in gravity signal transduction in addition to their sedimentation (Masson et al.). Studies on magnetic effects further supported amyloplast displacement as the main signal for subsequent growth reactions. Descriptions of space flight results included an analysis of the life cycle of Arabidopsis under microgravity conditions in the ISS Kibo module. The data from the STS128 mission illustrate the maturity of current space experimentation. Experiments in the European Modular Cultivation System illustrated the cell signalling and gravimorphogenetic effects (BoucheronDubuisson et al.). New experiments on graviresistance, effects of hypergravity, cytoskeletal responses, osmotic regulation and gene expression of MCA were documented in Arabidopsis (Hoson et al.); this report also included space data on a tubulin mutant that shed light on its function on growth under 1-g conditions. A microtubule associated protein is

The topic of Gamma-ray emission from X-ray binaries, both their observational properties and the current theoretical models were discussed also. Overall, it was very satisfactory to have a rich variety of topics on HMXBs discussed by some of the leading experts in one day. There was a high attendance in this event, especially of young researchers. Several contributory presentations were made by young researchers and PhD students. The meeting ended on a positive note with the prospect of much improved sensitivity for hard X-ray observations in the coming years with the NuStar (USA), Astrosat (India) and Astro-H (Japan) missions.

Gravitational Effects in Plants, Fungi and Unicells (F1.1) [Report by K.H. Hasenstein] This session was organized around gravity effects on plants, protists, and fungi. The presentations included responses to gravity in higher plants (gravitropism), their genetic background, and changes in directional movements, organization and biochemistry. 18

early Earth, the emergence of cellular structures and function, and self-organization to primitive cells that populated the evolutionary path from inanimate to animate matter.

involved in microtubule reorientation and mechanosensitivity (Soga et al.). A report on strigolactones and their effects on root growth highlighted their influence on root architecture, root hair development and interaction with general auxin transport and localized effects on cell division that appears to be independent of auxin transport (Holtai). Technique-focused presentations included new analyses of the cytoskeletal organization (Edge), and assessment of mechanostimulation on root development (John).

The event consisted of three half-day topical sessions and included 19 oral presentations 20 or 30 minutes long. The sessions were complemented by a poster session. The audience fluctuated from 30 to 50 people. Both the speakers and the audience were nearly equally divided between senior researchers and postdoctoral fellows or graduate students.

The presentations were of excellent quality and originated from most labs working on gravitational effects from the US, Europe, and Asia and showcased the international character of the meeting in a most beautiful setting. The reports were innovative yet referred to classical studies and thus represented a valuable review and a roadmap for future research. The talks often made reference as to why restricting research to only a few model systems may not be the best approach to achieving a comprehensive understanding of gravity effects on plants. The perception of gravity on the most commonly studied subset of organisms, namely seeds and seedlings, differs considerably from older, established plants; in addition size, specific development, and growth conditions make a difference in gravitational effects.

The first session, titled “The seeds of life – organic molecules in space” was devoted to identifying and tracing synthetic pathways for prebiotically relevant molecules in different space environments. These molecules included amino acids with attention paid to the possibility of achieving homochirality, nucleobases and their potential precursors. Several different environments were considered, such as interplanetary dust particles, meteors and asteroids, and icy comets. A number of techniques were applied, including observational spectroscopy, organic chemistry in simulated space conditions and quantum chemistry. The latter was particularly well represented at the session, highlighting significant progress in achieving improved accuracy and reliability, and increased utility of this approach for data analysis and interpretation.

Although the scientific calibre of the three half-day sessions was high, a larger than usual fraction of participants did not present their scheduled presentations. Perhaps the more extensive travel effort and difficulties with registration procedures negatively affected attendance and may have excluded broader participation.

The second session was titled “Prebiotic chemistry—how and where”, covering the potential of prebiotic chemistry to start life in different environments, ranging from hydrothermal vents to volcanic islands, ices and Titan, was explored. Taken together these presentations indicate that rich chemistries yielding complex molecules that might possibly yield life can exist in a wide range of conditions. This, in turn, suggests that requirements other than chemistry, such as the ability to self-organize to functional structures, might have provided constraints for the emergence of life that were more important than organic chemistry. Other topics covered in this session were related to the origin of

Prebiotic Chemistry and the Origin of Life (F3.2) [Report by A. Pohorille] This session covered a broad range of topics related to prebiotic chemistry and the origin of life, starting from humble beginnings during which simple organic molecules were formed in space and progressing to chemistry on the 19

homochirality in polymers, in an extension of earlier talks on homochirality of monomers, and protobiologically plausible synthetic pathways to building blocks of biopolymers, such as ribose.

astrochemistry; S. Andersson discussed how the photo-chemical and thermal process influences interstellar ice chemistry; R. Garrod presented a talk on the new gas-grain chemical simulations of star forming regions and formation of Glycine in Hot Cores.

The subject of the third session was “From inanimate to animate matter – how did life start?” In this rather heterogeneous session several diverse topics were covered. They included the origin of protein-mediated functions, possible origins of genetic code and modelling of early evolutionary processes.

Chemical enrichment of dust: In this subsection, N. Watanabe talked about the H atom diffusion and water formation on interstellar ice; H. Hidaka presented a talk on the formation routes of deuterated formaldehyde and methanol by tunnelling reaction on amorphous solid water at 10-20K.

This session, which primarily deals with the origin of life, was the furthest from the core subjects of COSPAR meetings. Not surprisingly, the selection of topics was not as rich as in other sessions. It is suggested that active steps be taken to recruit speakers on the origins of life at future COSPAR meetings.

Physical process behind the chemical enrichment: Here, Y. Aikawa presented her investigation on the molecular evolution and D/H abundance ratios that develop as star formation proceeds from dense cloud cores to protostellar cores. S.K. Chakrabarti discussed the hydrodynamic simulation coupled with the chemical evolution to study the physics and Chemistry of the ISM. S. Pilling studied the influence of the degree of crystallinity on the bombardment of glycine by 1 MeV protons.

The event would not have been possible without generous support from COSPAR, the NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) and the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life (ISSOL), helping over half of the speakers to attend the meeting. In particular, supported by travel grants from these organizations, several young scientists at graduate or postdoctoral level were able to participate and delivered very good presentations. This, in turn, greatly contributed to the success of the event.

Experimental Astrochemistry: G. Vidali discussed the Formation of water in the interstellar medium; B. Sivaraman gave a presentation on low energy electron collisions on molecules in the condensed phase; A. Souza Bergantini discussed a recent experiment on desorption induced by solar wind electrons analogs in methanol ice.

Session F3.5 at the Mysore Assembly, named "Chemical Evolution of Star Forming Regions: Observations, Experiment and Theory", was allocated three half-day sessions. The opportunity was taken to explore several aspects of astrochemical research. The discussion was divided into sub-categories, which we summarise below:

Composition of interstellar ice: A. Das discussed the composition of interstellar grain mantle under various interstellar conditions; K. Acharyya presented a talk on the effect of grain sizes and grain growth on the formation of molecules in the ISM; S. Pilling presented recent experiment results on the processing of hydrocarbon-containing ices by cosmic ray analogues; L. Majumdar discussed the formation of some of the DNA bases during the collapsing phase of a proto-star; W. Iqbal discussed the formation of hydrogen molecules on grain surfaces.

Basic Chemical process: This sub-section consisted of three presentations. E. Herbst discussed the new tools and new challenges of

Complex molecules in the ISM: S. Rastogi studied the role of PAHs and its derivatives in astrophysical IR emissions; R. Saha presented

Chemical Evolution of Star Forming Regions: Observations, Experiment and Theory (F3.5) [Report by A. Das]

20

current space missions and the ready access to these and the associated analysis software which is afforded by the internet, the typical workshop aims to provide a highly practical training in the use of one or more of these, based on current missions.

the effect of photo-dissociation on the composition of the grain mantle; A. Souza discussed the processing of formic acid containing ice by heavy and energetic cosmic ray analogues; L. Majumdar talked about the spectral signature and chemical evolution of some complex molecules which could be treated as the precursor of some bio-molecules in the ISM.

A lively exchange of ideas followed the presentations on the rising awareness of space weather science and its link to capacity building initiatives, as well as global cooperation programmes and the use of ground based instrumentation in various regions of the globe. It was stressed that the use of standard ground based equipment provides an affordable way to participate in a meaningful way in these cooperative programmes, with substantial capacity building and societal benefits. It is also interesting to note that, even though they were not mentioned in the outline of the meeting, neither in any of the submitted abstracts, a discussion arose with regard to the use of cubesats as an affordable means for university groups and less developed countries to train and make contributions in space science and technology. A cubesat is a type of mini satellite for space research that usually has a volume of exactly one litre (10 cm cube), a mass of no more than 1.3 kg, and typically uses commercial off the shelf electronics components.

This was a brief, yet very successful meeting and the organisers would like to thank COSPAR for the opportunity to arrange this session.

Capacity Building in Solar and SunEarth Connection Studies (PCB.1) [Report by M. Machado, C. Gabriel] International cooperative programmes have proven to be excellent capacity building tools in solar and solar-terrestrial physics research. Starting with the SMY (Solar Maximum Year) in the 80s, followed by ISTP and most recently IHY, ILSW and ISWI ("International Space Weather Initiative”), they all have contributed or continue to do so, to disseminate the use of spacecraft data in conjunction with that obtained by ground based instruments. Many examples also exist of bilateral or multilateral agreements involving developed and developing countries that have served the same purpose. This half-day session, held in the morning of 19 July 2012, reviewed past, present and possible future programmes and cooperation opportunities, with emphasis on underscoring strengths and weaknesses with regard to scientific outcome and the linking with the building of new capacities.

Since attendance was not very large (around 20 participants in total), something typical in the case of programmatic-type meetings at COSPAR assemblies, this facilitated the communication of experience and new ideas between the attendees, possibly leading to new initiatives.

Eight solicited and contributed papers were presented, dealing with the aforementioned programmes as well as the capacity building use of space physics modelling tools. The session started with a review of the COSPAR programme of Capacity-Building Workshops, which have as a main objective the encouragement of the scientific use of space data by scientists in developing countries. This is possible in view of the large number of extensive archives of data from past and

Planetary Protection Mission Implementation and Status (PPP.2) [Report by A. Spry] The PPP2 session is targeted at planetary protection implementation, the status of ongoing and planned missions, and the techniques and procedures applied to spacecraft, instruments and other hardware in order to meet planetary protection 21

requirements.

C. Erd then gave an overview of the proposed planetary protection implementation for the ESA JUICE (Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) mission concept to the Jovian system. The presentation described the approach to meeting Category III requirements, highlighting the restriction of unintentional impact with Europa to the 1 x 10-4 probability level in the mission design.

A summary of the status of NASA missions (in flight and in development) was provided by C. Conley, followed by a similar status summary for ESA missions presented by C. Erd, in place of G. Kminek who was unable to attend. In each case, missions already launched are maintaining compliance with COSPAR Planetary Protection policy, and credible paths to compliance were described for missions under development.

The next three presentations focused on concepts and technologies for Mars Sample Return (MSR) missions. M. Viso’s presentation on CNES’s sample capsule sealing methodology study compared three seal welding technologies: electron beam, friction stir and laser. Based on extensive testing with representative model hardware and materials, the laser technology came out as the preferred option.

A more detailed description of the planetary protection status of NASA’s recently launched Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission was given by JPL’s N. Benardini, updating the PP implementation progress from that reported at Bremen in 2010. The MSL Project was in compliance, and approval granted for launch on 26 November 2011, as a COSPAR Category IVa mission. Final assessment indicates that the 1-ton spacecraft left Earth bound for the red planet accounting for only 5.64 x 104 spores on landed hardware and 1.81 x 105 spores on impacting hardware.

D. Rebuffat then presented the planetary protection approach for MSR in the context of the ESA Mars Robotic Exploration Preparation (MREP) programme. In particular, the reliability of the return vehicle and the biological flight containment system was discussed, including study of the effect of micrometeoroids on TPS.

Subsequent presentations described mission design concepts and planetary protection implementations for proposed or planned missions. H. Yano described the JAXA Hayabusa-2 project and its plan to return samples from 1999 JU3, a C-type NEO, proposed as a Category II outbound/Category V (unrestricted Earth return) mission. The mission looks forward to returning asteroid samples in late 2020.

R. Gershman, JPL, then described NASA’s most recent approach to back-contamination for an MSR campaign architecture, focusing on containment assurance aspects of the architecture. Fault tree analysis work, designed to assure a very low probability of inadvertent release of Martian material into the Earth's biosphere, with an unprecedented degree of confidence in hardware performance, was presented.

An update to the ExoMars programme was provided by ESA’s D. Rebuffat, standing in for G. Kminek. The 2016 element of the ExoMars programme is planning to use the orbital lifetime approach to meeting its Category III planetary protection requirements at Mars, but is also maintaining a bioburden management activity to ensure it can switch to the alternative bioburden control approach, if required. The “Entry, Descent and Landing” technology demonstrator flying as part of the 2016 mission plans to meet Category IVa requirements, whereas the later 2018 mission with the ExoMars rover payload plans to meet Category IVb requirements.

The final presentation of the session was a survey of current and emerging technologies for biological contamination control, presented by A. Frick of the Space Policy Institute, which highlighted the need to design the spacecraft to planetary protection requirements, and not try to design planetary protection around the spacecraft.

22