Program of BSS 2022
Application & registration
The registration for Balaton Summer School 2022 is open until July 15. You may find the more information here.
Abstracts
The plasma environment of Mercury as observed by space missions
Zsófia Bebesi – Wigner RCP Budapest, Hungary
Mercury is the innermost planet of our solar system, therefore (as it is not easily observable by telescope due to the proximity of the Sun and so far, only two space missions have ever approached it), until recently we did not have very detailed knowledge of its surface, composition, magnetic field, and heliospheric environment. The first spacecraft that had ever flown by Mercury was Mariner-10 (in 1975, during a gravitational maneuver), when we were able to get a first glimpse at its surface and obtain primary information about is physical characteristics. It took decades for the next space probe, NASA’s MESSENGER to enter into orbit around Mercury, in the year 2011. This was the first spacecraft that had already been specifically designed to extensively study Mercury and it has collected a large amount of scientific data over its more than four years spent in orbit. The BepiColombo (launched in October, 2018) space mission will open a new chapter in Mercury’s exploration after its arrival in December 2025. It consists of two spacecraft that – among many interesting scientific objectives – will simultaneously study the plasma environment around the planet, its surface, magnetic field and solar wind interactions. During the lecture – based on the results of the previous space probes – we will review the most important physical processes in Mercury’s environment and also have an overview of the BepiColombo space mission.
Solar Wind
Nikolett Biró – Wigner Research Center of Physics
The state of the Sun severely affects the objects in the Solar System. These effects are transmitted through the solar wind, a stream of plasma released from our central star. Studying the solar wind is paramount as it can both give us insight into the conditions on the Sun and allow us to forecast potentially dangerous events such as geomagnetic storms.
Not all planets in our Solar System possess magnetospheres which would shield them from the incoming energetic particles and plasma flow. Hence the interaction between the solar wind and a planetary body can take multiple forms, depending on whether an atmosphere or a dynamo is present.
In this presentation, I will talk about transients in the solar wind such as Coronal Mass Ejections, the periodic nature of solar wind, and how it affects not only our plasma environment, but also the other planets found in the Solar System.
Space Weather and Its Effects on Earth
Gergely Kobán – Wigner Research Center of Physics
Our Sun continuously emits a high-speed charged particle flow, called the solar wind. The propagating solar wind interacts with the magnetospheres of solar system bodies, sometimes causing major disturbances; its effects on Earth are called geomagnetic storms. The goal of space weather research is to understand the underlying mechanisms and to be able to forecast space weather events. As technology influences more and more aspects of everyday life, studying this phenomenon gets even more important, because geomagnetic storms can affect both space-borne and ground-based infrastructure. They can disrupt communication and power grids, can cause corrosion in pipelines, and can even subject astronauts and airplane passengers to increased radiation. The strongest geomagnetic storm, the Carrington event, happened in 1859. It took down parts of the telegraph grid, causing fire and electrically shocking operators. According to researchers, if a similar space weather event were to happen now, we could assume 1000 billion USD in damages and a ten-year recovery period. In my presentation, I will talk about the mechanisms causing the geomagnetic storms, how we can quantify the strength of the events, how we try to predict them, and what would happen if another Carrington event hit Earth nowadays.
Solar Eruption Forecasting: A Grand Challenge
Marianna Korsós -Aberystwyth University
The interaction of solar activity with the Earth’s atmosphere occurs through a complex series of events called Space Weather. The main quest of solar activity research is to understand clearly the causes and dynamics of Space Weather phenomena in order to protect mankind and our sophisticated technological systems that might be at considerable risk from high-speed charged particles blowing often abruptly off the Sun. Therefore, in this presentation, we present a brief overview of Space Weather research and outline the current state-of-the-art.
Puli Lunar Water Snooper – A neutron spectrometer payload for
rovers to map lunar water deposits
Hazadi Mátyás
The Puli Lunar Water Snooper (PLWS) is a small neutron spectrometer payload instrument developed by Puli Space Technologies and funded by NASA for a year after winning two NASA challenges with the payload concept. PLWS can in-situ identify and measure the local subsurface water equivalent hydrogen concentration of the lunar regolith by detecting albedo neutrons. Due to cosmic rays, albedo neutrons are produced inside and leaving the lunar regolith with a neutron energy spectrum characteristic to the local soil composition. PLWS detects thermal and epithermal neutrons separately using modified commercial off-the-shelf CMOS image sensors as neutron detectors. With these capabilities, PLWS addresses essential needs of the Space Resources community, and scientific goals of the NASA Artemis program. Moreover, it is extremely lightweight (382 g), small-sized (10×10×3.4 cm) and low-cost (COTS-based), making it suitable especially for small lunar rovers. Successful neutron tests have been performed at CERN, demonstrating the capability to monitor both thermal, epithermal and fast neutron count rates in parallel in various neutron environments over wide ranges and long durations. PLWS prototypes at TRL 6 have been already manufactured and delivered to NASA JPL in February 2022 for further testing in preparation for a potential lunar flight opportunity in 2024. In collaboration with CERN, the first terrestrial spin-off application of PLWS is being prepared as well, using it as a radiation monitor in high-energy particle accelerator environments.
How close are we to solve one of astrophysics greatest problems: the solar plasma heating?
Erdélyi Róbert – University of Sheffield
Recent satellite (SOHO, TRACE, STEREO, Hinode, SDO, IRIS) and ground-based (DST, SST, DKIST) observations have provided plenty of clear and spectacular evidence of waves and oscillations present in the solar atmosphere. The detection and analysis of these waves allows us to perform unprecedented sub-resolution solar magneto-seismology (SMS) of the solar plasma, i.e. looking into the Sun. First I will introduce the solar wave theory focussing on linear waves and the SMS tool.
Next, I will concentrate on the role of the various solar waves, and will discuss the latest status on detecting them. Within the framework of MHD, I will discuss their photospheric origin and generation mechanism. I embark on showing how MHD waves sail throughout the solar chromosphere, transition region or even into the corona. Finally, I will also show what is common in the physics of the mating dance of crocodiles and solar plasma jets, all to do with waves.