Local Media Invited To Goddard For Heliophysics Tours And Demos

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight is hosting an event for local media on Tuesday, June 26, from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. EDT. This half-day event will showcase some of the Center’s state-of-the-art facilities, future Heliophysics’ missions, and space weather computer modeling efforts.

Attendees will:

* See how scientists protect NASA spacecraft with cutting-edge space weather forecasts.

* View stunning movies taken by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) on a 15-screen hyperwall, with live commentary from SDO scientists.

* Visit the SDO Mission Ops Center, where Goddard engineers daily monitor the spacecraft and oversee the 150 million bits of data per second flowing from SDO to ground stations and science centers.

* See the first federal facility “green” cleanroom where engineers are building four new heliophysics spacecraft to study magnetic reconnection – the explosive process that powers eruptions on the sun and in Earth’s magnetic environment.

* Mingle with numerous space scientists and discuss research on solar flares, coronal mass ejections, the aurora, and the dynamic laws of physics governing these events.

* Improve their understanding of the emerging science of space weather and heliophysics, the study of the sun and its effects on Earth and the solar system.

Accredited media interested in attending should contact Susan Hendrixat 301-286-7745, or send an e-mail to: susan.m.hendrix@nasa.gov no later than June 22 . Due to security requirements, all attendees must be U.S. citizens. Photography may not be allowed in certain areas.

For more information about NASA’s Heliophysics program, visit: www.nasa.gov/sunearth