Presentation Title:

“Introduction to Aurora”

by

Natsuo Sato

National Institute of Polar Research

Time: 15:00 , Sep 17 2015

Meeting Room: 208

Abstract

An aurora is a natural light display in the sky seen predominantly in the high latitude region (Arctic and Antarctic). Origin of aurora is solar wind. Auroras are produced when high-energy electrons are precipitated into the upper atmosphere, where their energy is lost. The resulting ionization and excitation of atmospheric constituents emits light of varying color. This light is aurora.

In my talk of “Introduction to Aurora” I will make presentation about 1) Color, shape and movement of aurora, 2) Altitude and occurrence region, 3) Similarity and dissimilarity of Northern and Southern hemisphere aurora, 4) Origin of aurora, 5) Space weather, 5) Aurora in the other planet,etc.

Biography:

Natsuo Sato

Affiliation: National Institute of Polar Research

E-mail: nsato@nipr.ac.jp

He received the B.E degree in science from Yamagata University, Yamagata, Japan, and the M.E. degree and the Ph.D. degree in science from University of Tokyo, Japan. In 1976 he got job as a research associate at National Institute of Polar Research (NIPR). In 1982 he promoted to associate professor. In 1991 he promoted to professor. From 1984 to 2005 he was a head of Information Science Center of NIPR. In 2005 he worked as a Voce-Director General of NIPR until his retirement of March 2012. He was a principal investigators of Syowa-Iceland conjugate observation in 1984-2012, Japan-China Cooperative Research on polar cusp/cap aurora at Zhongshan, Antarctica in 1993-2012, Upper Atmospheric Physics Research on Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition in 1993-2006, Syowa SuperDARN (Super Dual Auroral Radar Network) in 1995-2012. He participated Japanese Antarctic Expedition (JARE) in 1974-1975 and 1980-1982 for overwinter party. He was a leader of JARE summer party in 1987-1988 and a leader of wintering party in 1992-1994. His main scientific field is conjugate aurora observed between Syowa Station in the southern hemisphere and Iceland in the northern hemisphere. His scientific interest is generation mechanism of pulsating aurora. He received Academic awards of “The Tanaka-Date Prize”, from the Society of Geomagnetism and Earth Planetary and Space Science (SGEPSS), Japan in 1982 and "GGS NASA Group Achievement Award", USA in 1999. He retired on 31 March 2012 from NIPR. He is now a Professor Emeritus, NIPR.