The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) is a mission of international cooperation between ESA and NASA to study the Sun, from its deep core to the outer corona, the solar wind, and the interaction with the interstellar medium.
It was launched a decade ago on 2 December 1995, and in April 2006 it will have completed 10 years of successful scientific operations. In celebration of this milestone, we are organizing a meeting to review the many and varied scientific accomplishments of SOHO. An important focus of the meeting will be the conceptual and theoretical advances that coordinated multi-instrument and multi-mission observations of the Sun have helped us make in the last decade, and to examine the role that the continued observations of SOHO will play within the context of future missions.
The meeting will cover the full breadth of SOHO science, organised around the following seven sessions:
- Solar Interior: From Exploration to Experimentation
Invited speakers: D. Gough, S. Basu, T. Corbard - Magnetic Variability: From the Tachocline to the Heliosphere
Invited speakers: L. Gizon, S. Tobias, Z. Mikic - Atmospheric Heating and Solar Wind Origin: MHD vs. Plasma Physics
Invited speakers: J. Klimchuk, V. Hansteen, G. Poletto - Solar Variability and its Effects on the Heliosphere and the Earth
Invited speakers: P. Foukal, G. Simnett, B. Klecker - SOHO and the Solar System
Invited speakers: R. Lallement, D. Biesecker (TBC) - The SOHO Roller-Coaster: Mission History and Personal Memories
- From SOHO to ILWS and Beyond: Visions for Solar Research from Space
Invited speakers: K. Schrijver, J. Gurman, P. Cargill
The meeting will be held in the Naxos Beach Resort in Giardini Naxos, next to Taormina, on the beautiful island of Sicily, Italy, where we have arranged for a block reservation at special room rates.
Limited funds will be available for PhD students and recent post docs who could not afford to come otherwise.
Within the scientific symposium, we are also planning a “SOHO reunion” to celebrate 10 successful years of SOHO operations together with most of the people who significantly contributed to the technical development and subsequent management of the SOHO mission. They will join us on Thursday, May 11, afternoon, during Session 6 of the meeting (The SOHO Roller-Coaster: Mission History and Personal Memories), especially devoted to this celebration. The “SOHO reunion” will continue with the conference dinner.