Forum for Science, Industry and Business

European experts meet again in Brussels to predict the weather in space

Space weather ingredients: flares overwhelming the Earth suddenly with an overdose of radiation, enormous and heavy plasma clouds rushing through space and finally hitting Earth, high-energetic particles bombarding the earth’s atmosphere and the North and South Pole.

Space Weather is hot

Since the start of the space age, men understood that the Sun cannot be ignored. Europe offered an answer in the form of the ESA, European Space Agency. With European coordination, a fleet of space missions has been built.

Space weather stations were installed all over the world. In Belgium, the Solar-Terrestrial Center of Excellence (STCE) belongs to this network of ’Regional Warning Centers' and has a worldwide recognized expertise on space weather science and services.

Space Weather has economic repercussions. Radio communication, satellites, critical power infrastructure, pipelines, aviation, navigation systems like GPS... are influenced and disturbed.

Our technological systems and in fact the whole Earth are in the grip of the Sun. The keywords of this year are: Space Situational Awareness, GNSS, offshore drilling, magnetic surveying en geomagnetism, space weather models, data-tools-services, solar weather.

International Space Station, ISS. He is assigned to participate in another space flight to the ISS in 2009.

The lecture will take place in the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, November 17, 18:30.

Tuesday 18 and Wednesday 19 November, end-users of space weather products can explore on a space weather fair. Space weather related industry and scientific institutes offer their know-how in the form of hands-on tools and presentations. The fair is an easy platform for scientists, users and industry to have informal contacts, possibly leading to collaborations.

You are also welcome on the other sessions which focus more on the scientific background of space weather.

Ronald Van der Linden | alfa
Further information:
http://www.oma.be

Im Focus: Fizzy soda water could be key to clean manufacture of flat wonder material: Graphene

Whether you call it effervescent, fizzy, or sparkling, carbonated water is making a comeback as a beverage. Aside from quenching thirst, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have discovered a new use for these "bubbly" concoctions that will have major impact on the manufacturer of the world's thinnest, flattest, and one most useful materials -- graphene.

As graphene's popularity grows as an advanced "wonder" material, the speed and quality at which it can be manufactured will be paramount. With that in mind,...

Im Focus: Exotic quantum states made from light: Physicists create optical “wells” for a super-photon

Physicists at the University of Bonn have managed to create optical hollows and more complex patterns into which the light of a Bose-Einstein condensate flows. The creation of such highly low-loss structures for light is a prerequisite for complex light circuits, such as for quantum information processing for a new generation of computers. The researchers are now presenting their results in the journal Nature Photonics.

Light particles (photons) occur as tiny, indivisible portions. Many thousands of these light portions can be merged to form a single super-photon if they are...

Im Focus: Circular RNA linked to brain function

For the first time, scientists have shown that circular RNA is linked to brain function. When a RNA molecule called Cdr1as was deleted from the genome of mice, the animals had problems filtering out unnecessary information – like patients suffering from neuropsychiatric disorders.

While hundreds of circular RNAs (circRNAs) are abundant in mammalian brains, one big question has remained unanswered: What are they actually good for? In the...

Im Focus: RAVAN CubeSat measures Earth's outgoing energy

An experimental small satellite has successfully collected and delivered data on a key measurement for predicting changes in Earth's climate.

The Radiometer Assessment using Vertically Aligned Nanotubes (RAVAN) CubeSat was launched into low-Earth orbit on Nov. 11, 2016, in order to test new...

Im Focus: Scientists shine new light on the “other high temperature superconductor”

A study led by scientists of the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) at the Center for Free-Electron Laser Science in Hamburg presents evidence of the coexistence of superconductivity and “charge-density-waves” in compounds of the poorly-studied family of bismuthates. This observation opens up new perspectives for a deeper understanding of the phenomenon of high-temperature superconductivity, a topic which is at the core of condensed matter research since more than 30 years. The paper by Nicoletti et al has been published in the PNAS.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, superconductivity had been observed in some metals at temperatures only a few degrees above the absolute zero (minus...