Super Stellar Friday

Join us this month for an in-depth overview of the IMAP mission and its upcoming launch from the deputy principal investigator for the mission, Professor Nathan Schwadron of UNH.

 

The Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe, or IMAP, will explore and map the very boundaries of our heliosphere — a huge bubble created by the Sun's wind that encapsulates our entire solar system — and study how the heliosphere interacts with the local galactic neighborhood beyond.

 

As a modern-day celestial cartographer, IMAP will also explore and chart the vast range of particles in interplanetary space, helping to investigate two of the most important overarching issues in heliophysics — the energization of charged particles from the Sun, and the interaction of the solar wind at its boundary with interstellar space. Additionally, IMAP will support real-time observations of the solar wind and energetic particles, which can produce hazardous conditions in the space environment near Earth.

 

Bio:

 

Nathan Schwadron, Ph.D, is a Presidential Chair and the Norman S. and Anna Marie Waite Professor of Physics at the University of New Hampshire (UNH). Dr.  Schwadron has served on numerous NASA and National Academy of Sciences (NAS) committees such as the NASA Sun-Earth Connection Advisory Subcommittee, the 2009 Heliophysics Mission Planning Working Group, the NAS Committee for Solar and Space Physics, and the NAS Geospace Portfolio Review Committee. Dr. Schwadron chaired the NASA Living with a Star Steering Committee and is the creator and lead of the New England Space Science Consortium. Learn more about this month's speaker here: https://spacephysics.princeton.edu/people/nathan-schwadron-phd