Montreal Space Symposium 2019

Heliophysics is one of the four divisions of NASA science mission directorate, dealing with the Sun and the space environment, in particular space weather, the study of how solar and heliospheric conditions affect Earth’s magnetosphere, upper atmosphere and man-made technology in space and on the ground, including spacecraft failure, auroras and geomagnetically induced currents. Solar eruptions, which occur daily, are the main cause of intense space weather effects, being associated with the majority of intense and extreme geomagnetic storms and energetic particle events. In this talk, I will introduce what we have learnt about solar eruptions from sixty years of space-based observations and present recent development on forecasting their space weather effects. I will conclude with a presentation of some future heliophysics missions and mission concepts, from flagship missions to smallsats and CubeSats, focusing on the advances made possible from miniaturization and cheaper access to space.

Exoplanets have been the subject of curiosity and wonder for astronomers and the general public alike since the first discovery of an exoplanet in the 1990s, and their once-elusive characteristics continue to be unveiled with the latest research. Moreover, the advent of more powerful space telescopes such as Kepler, TESS, and Spitzer underscores the integral role of technological breakthroughs in making advancements in exoplanetary science, and as a result, several efforts have been made to inform the design of experiment for future missions. Exocartographer, a Python code written by a group of exoplanet researchers led by Ben Farr (University of Oregon), aims to accomplish this by simulating time-resolved light curve data of an exoplanet and extracting from it the exoplanet’s orbital parameters and an albedo map of its surface. However, this process is still a computational challenge for Exocartographer which must be resolved prior to its use in design experimentation. During this presentation, speaker Emilie Lafleche will detail her summer research with supervisor Nicolas Cowan (McGill University) pertaining to improving the efficiency and function of Exocartographer, and discuss potential groundbreaking implications of mapping exoplanet surfaces with future direct imaging telescopes for the fields of astrobiology, planetary science, and engineering.