Daniel is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, specializing in magnetosphere-ionosphere-thermosphere coupling. He mainly works with data from the Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN), using it along with other instruments to probe the effects of ionospheric flows on the upper atmosphere. Daniel completed a Masters in Astrophysics at Aberystwyth University, UK, …
The Earth’s upper polar atmospheric region is constantly bombarded with energy input from the interaction between the magnetosphere and the solar wind. This controls immediately visible phenomena like the aurora borealis and australis, but also results in changes to the composition and dynamics of the atmosphere itself. The total rate of electromagnetic energy per unit …
Using information from ESA’s Swarm satellite constellation, scientists have made a discovery about how energy generated by electrically-charged particles in the solar wind flows into Earth’s atmosphere – surprisingly, more of it heads towards the magnetic north pole than towards the magnetic south pole. Read the full story. This research was supported by the ESA …
Devin is a postdoctoral fellow in Space Physics at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada. He obtained his B.Eng. (2010), M.Sc. (2013), and Ph.D. (2019) at the University of Saskatchewan, with his Ph.D. focused on the design, construction, and operation of a novel coherent scatter radar system to measure plasma density irregularities in the E-region …
Living Planet Fellowship research project carried out by Devin Huyghebaert. The Swarm SuperDARN ICEBEAR Collaboration – Turbulent E-region Aurora Measurements (SSIC-TEAM) project will focus on the Farley-Buneman Instability (FBI) and its effects on plasma density irregularity and turbulence generation in the E-region ionosphere. A better understanding of the FBI is required due to its potential for …
Brought to the interest of the scientific community by the citizen Aurora Chasers group of amateur photographers and enthusiasts, the intriguing nighttime optical phenomenon which got its name “Steve” after an animated movie scene, got an honorary “Sky Wonders” coin, issued by the Canadian Coin & Currency. ESA Living Planet Fellow William Archer with the University …
Steve is a nighttime optical phenomenon shown to be associated with intense subauroral ion drifts (SAID). The phenomenon is described as a purple band of light equatorward of aurora and it is sometimes accompanied by periodic green emissions termed “picket fence”. There are several hypotheses on the physical mechanisms that could be causing Steve and …
New research published in Geophysical Research Letters investigates in-situ ionospheric plasma measurements from the European Space Agency’s Swarm satellites coincident with ground-based optical measurements of the phenomenon known as “Steve”. The authors show that Steve is consistently associated with narrow ionospheric flow channels called subauroral ion drifts (SAID). These observations are unusually intense with faster …
William complete his graduate degrees at the University of Calgary in 2017 under the supervision of Dr. David Knudsen. The title of his doctoral thesis was “Birkeland current boundary flows”, a nighttime auroral phenomena resulting in fast and narrow ionospheric flow channels during geomagnetically quiet conditions. Since then he has been working as a post-doctoral …
Ivan graduated with a Master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Sheffield, United Kingdom, and went on to finish a PhD at the same university in Space Systems under the Automatic Systems and Control Engineering department. Working in Prof Michael Balikhin’s research lab, he studied electromagnetic ion cyclotron waves using the ESA Cluster …
