ANNUAL REPORT 2012 SPACE RESEARCH INSTITUTE GRAZ AUSTRIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES Cover Image An aurora in Whitehorse Yukon Canada that appeared in the sky in the early hours of 1 October 2012 due to the effects of a coronal mass ejection that erupted from the Sun three days earlier (Image Courtesy of Joseph Bradley/NASA). The Van Allen Probes were launched in summer 2012 to help us understand the Sun’s influence on Earth and near-Earth space by studying the Earth’s radiation belts on various scales of space and time. IWF participates as one of the Co-I institutes. Table of Contents INTRODUCTION 1 SOLID EARTH 3 GRAVITY FIELD .............................................................................................................................. 3 GEODYNAMICS ............................................................................................................................... 5 ATMOSPHERE ................................................................................................................................. 6 SATELLITE LASER RANGING ............................................................................................................... 7 NEAR-EARTH SPACE 9 MISSIONS ..................................................................................................................................... 9 PHYSICS ..................................................................................................................................... 11 SOLAR SYSTEM 15 SUN & SOLAR WIND ...................................................................................................................... 15 MERCURY ................................................................................................................................... 17 VENUS ....................................................................................................................................... 18 JUPITER ...................................................................................................................................... 20 SATURN & TITAN ......................................................................................................................... 21 COMETS ..................................................................................................................................... 22 EXOPLANETS................................................................................................................................ 23 TESTING & MANUFACTURING 25 PUBLICATIONS & TALKS 27 REFEREED ARTICLES ...................................................................................................................... 27 BOOKS ....................................................................................................................................... 34 PROCEEDINGS & BOOK CHAPTERS..................................................................................................... 34 ORAL PRESENTATIONS ................................................................................................................... 35 POSTERS ..................................................................................................................................... 41 CO-AUTHORED PRESENTATIONS ...................................................................................................... 43 TEACHING & WORKSHOPS 51 LECTURING ................................................................................................................................. 51 THESES ...................................................................................................................................... 51 MEETINGS ................................................................................................................................... 52 AWARDS AND RECOGNITION ........................................................................................................... 52 PUBLIC OUTREACH ........................................................................................................................ 52 PERSONNEL 55 Introduction The Space Research Institute (Institut für Wel- traumforschung, IWF) of the Austrian Acade- my of Sciences (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, ÖAW) in Graz focuses on the exploration of the solar system and satellite geodesy. With over 80 staff members from more than a dozen different nationalities it is the Austrian space research institute par ex- cellence. It cooperates closely with space agencies all over the world and with numerous other national and international research in- Fig. 1: The Van Allen Probes-carrying Atlas 5 on its stitutions. A particularly intense cooperation launch pad (Credit: United Launch Alliance/Pat Corkery). exists with the European Space Agency (ESA). MMS will use four identically equipped IWF participates in interplanetary missions as spacecraft to explore the acceleration pro- well as in missions to Earth’s near-space en- cesses that govern the dynamics of the vironment: Earth's magnetosphere. It is scheduled for BepiColombo will be launched in 2015 to launch in 2014. investigate planet Mercury, using two orbi- The Van Allen Probes are two NASA space- ters, one specialized in magnetospheric craft which were launched on 30 August studies and one in remote sensing. 2012 to quantify processes in the Earth’s Cassini will continue to explore Saturn’s radiation belts (Fig. 1). magnetosphere and its moons until 2017. Resonance is a Russian space mission of four identical spacecraft, orbiting partially ESA’s first S-class mission CHEOPS (CHa- within the same magnetic flux tube, sche- racterizing ExOPlanets Satellite) will cha- duled for launch in 2015. racterize exoplanets in detail. Its launch is expected in 2017. Rosetta is on its way to comet 67P/Chury- umov-Gerasimenko. It will arrive in sum- Cluster, the four-spacecraft mission is still mer 2014 and deposit a lander in Novem- providing unique data leading to a new un- ber. derstanding of space plasmas. Solar Orbiter is to study along an innova- COROT searches for extra-solar planets tive trajectory solar and heliospheric phe- and analyses oscillation modes of stars. nomena, planned for launch in 2017. GOCE is determining the structure of the STEREO studies solar (wind) structures with terrestrial gravitational field with unprece- two spacecraft orbiting the Sun approx- dented accuracy. imately at Earth’s distance. The angular Juno is a NASA mission dedicated to un- distance from the Earth varies by ~22° per derstand Jupiter’s origin and evolution. year. 1 THEMIS has been reduced to a near-Earth IWF structure and funding three-spacecraft mission. The two other IWF is, as a heritage since foundation, struc- spacecraft are now orbiting the moon in tured into three departments: the ARTEMIS mission. Venus Express explores the space plasma Experimental Space Research environment around Venus. (Head: Prof. Wolfgang Baumjohann) Extraterrestrial Physics IWF is naturally engaged in analyzing data (Head: Prof. Helmut O. Rucker) from these and other space missions. This analysis is supported by theory, simulation, Satellite Geodesy and laboratory experiments. Furthermore, at (Head: Prof. Hans Sünkel) Lustbühel Observatory, one of the most accu- Wolfgang Baumjohann serves as Director. All rate laser ranging stations of the world is op- important decisions are considered by an in- erated. stitute council consisting of the three research directors and six staff members. Scientific highlights in 2012 Scientifically, there are no walls between the Gravity field measurements by GRACE have three departments. Staff members from dif- shown that the Earth’s sea level is increas- ferent departments work successfully together ing by 1.4 mm per year. in six research fields (Fig. 2). For the first time, bistatic satellite laser ranging was tested successfully. Observation of a magnetic flux tube in Ve- nus’s magnetotail indicates the presence of magnetic reconnection. The kinetic ballooning instability has been identified in the near-Earth magnetotail. The year 2012 in numbers Members of the institute published almost Fig. 2: IWF research fields and group leaders. 100 papers in refereed international journals, of which 27 were first author publications. The bulk of financial support for the research During the same period, articles with authors is provided by the ÖAW. Substantial support is from the institute were cited almost 2700 also provided by other national institutions, in times in the international literature. In addi- particular the Austrian Research Promotion tion, over 160 talks and posters have been Agency (Österreichische Forschungsförde- presented at international conferences by rungsgesellschaft, FFG) and the Austrian members of the IWF, including 25 by special Science Fund (Fonds zur Förderung der wis- invitation from the conveners. Last but not senschaftlichen Forschung, FWF). Further- least, institute members organized 18 ses- more, European institutions like ESA and the sions at international meetings. European Union contribute substantially. 2 Solid Earth Sophisticated space-geodetic techniques are lite gravity gradiometry is able to resolve applied to monitor the dynamics of the solid short-scale structures – down to features with Earth, the oceans, and the atmosphere. Nu- spatial resolution of about 80 km. The satel- merous Earth observation satellite missions lite (see Fig. 3) was launched in 2009 and fi- provide high quality data, which are nowadays