Category: Conferences

Conferences, workshops, meetings, summer schools

COSPAR 2020 SCIENTIFIC ASSEMBLY POSTPONED TO JANUARY 2021

COSPAR 2020 SCIENTIFIC ASSEMBLY POSTPONED TO JANUARY 2021

The leadership of COSPAR and the Local Organizing Committee for COSPAR 2020 in Sydney, Australia have concluded that with the worldwide pandemic and accompanying social and economic disruption, COSPAR 2020 must be postponed.

The new dates for the 43rd COSPAR Scientific Assembly will be 28 January – 4 February 2021 and hereafter will be referred to as COSPAR 2021.

The extensive planning and preparations for COSPAR 2020 are completely transferable to the new dates, by which time we anticipate that the thirst for knowledge and personal collaboration throughout the global space research community can and will be met with an extremely successful COSPAR Scientific Assembly in Australia.

We sincerely hope that the entire COSPAR community is able to remain healthy and that the extraordinary efforts underway to contain the coronavirus and preserve economic security are successful.

In the meantime, let’s continue to work together virtually so that we ensure a Sydney summer in January 2021 will both brighten our outlook and continue our cause of promoting and facilitating international cooperation and advances in space research.

       

Len A. Fisk                  Iver Cairns                Russell Boyce
COSPAR President     Chair, Prog. Com.    Chair, Local Organizing Com.   
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COVID-19: Postponement of 2020 National Astronomy Meeting

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Council of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) and senior management at the University of Bath have come to the difficult decision to postpone the National Astronomy Meeting (NAM 2020) conference. The conference was due to take place in Bath from 12-17 July.

We all find ourselves in an unprecedented and rapidly evolving situation, with governments around the world revising their official guidelines on travel and social contact on a daily basis. This makes it impossible for us to predict what awaits us this summer. What is clear, however, is that this is not the right time to push ahead with plans to organise a large gathering bringing together people from across the UK and the rest of the world. Even if a conference were to be lawful come July, it would surely be reckless to expose our community to the unnecessary risk of coronavirus transmission.

Please rest assured that the conference is being postponed, not cancelled. The University of Bath is still entirely committed to hosting NAM. With so much remaining unknown about the pandemic, it is not possible for us to fix a new date quite yet, however we are tentatively hopeful that the conference can go ahead in the summer of 2021.

So much time and dedication has gone into preparing for NAM 2020 – from the RAS and University staff, and from volunteer conference session chairs and organisers too. We are truly sorry for the disappointment this announcement is sure to cause. In the run-up to the rescheduled conference, we plan to give priority to scientists who were due to present papers at this year’s conference and to sessions already accepted.

In the months ahead, we will be redoubling our efforts to stay connected with our community, updating people on our plans as they evolve. The Covid-19 situation has also strengthened our resolve to find innovative new ways for the astronomers, space scientists and geophysicists who planned to come to NAM 2020 this year to share their ideas.

There is no doubt that physical meetings will always play a part in the way scientists network and collaborate, but we are also eager to explore digital conference platforms, as we believe remote conferencing will be an important step forward in giving our participants dependable access to talks and meetings. Such virtual meetings hold great promise in making meetings both more inclusive and more environmentally sustainable. Inclusivity and reducing our carbon footprint are priorities for both the RAS and for the University of Bath.

As we research the options for streaming and digital conference solutions, we would very much welcome practical suggestions from our community – please send in your ideas.

A growing number of us will be working from home or self-isolating in the months ahead. Scientists with commitments to students will be absorbed by the logistics of taking their teaching online. It is going to be a busy and unusual time for us all. Despite the inevitable disruption to all of lives, it is hoped that we can all find a way to continue with our quest to unravel the mysteries of the universe and to add to humanity’s understanding of deep space.

All of us at the RAS and the University of Bath sincerely hope our community members and their families stay as healthy as possible.

We will be in touch again as soon as we have further news.

Best wishes,

Patricia Schady
on behalf of the NAM2020 LOC… continue to the full article

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RAS Specialist Discussion Meeting on 22 May Postponed

Dear Colleague,

We have been informed by the RAS Council that the Specialist Discussion Meeting on 22 May 2020 is postponed due to the current situation regarding the Covid-19 outbreak. We are in close contact with the RAS and will get back to you as soon as the new date is established.

Best regards,

Jiajia Liu (UoS), Chris Nelson (QUB), Robertus Erdélyi (UoS), Mihalis Mathioudakis (QUB)… continue to the full article

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Remind: Deadline approaching for abstract submission to the RAS Specialist Discussion Meeting on 22 May 2020

Dear Colleague,

There will be a Royal Astronomical Society Specialist Discussion Meeting on Friday, 22 May 2020. The topic will be “MHD oscillations and waves from the photosphere to the corona”.

The vast presence of MHD oscillations and waves in the solar atmosphere is now unquestionable. However, it is still an open question as to how these waves and oscillations contribute to the heating of the solar atmosphere and the acceleration of the solar wind. A range of new instrumentation including the PSP, DKIST and Solar Orbiter, have recently/will soon become available providing us data with unprecedented resolution observed from close to the Sun to the Earth for studying MHD oscillations and waves.

Discussions will take place around topics including but not limited to: the propagation of waves from the lower to the upper solar atmosphere; the application of solar magneto-seismology (SMS) to structuring in the atmosphere of the Sun; the detection of MHD waves in the solar atmosphere and interplanetary space; and the prospects for major advances using the next generation of solar instrumentation.

Hereby, we cordially invite colleagues to contribute to and participate in the discussions. We also encourage all those interested to present their related SUCs or specific observing sequences that would help to achieve the wave-related science goals with the upcoming 4-m class solar telescopes.

Online abstract submission is now open until 10 April 2020 via https://forms.gle/cFxeikp9LvQQJWPS6

Accepted oral talks and posters will be notified before 20 April 2020.

Jiajia Liu (UoS), Chris Nelson (QUB), Robertus Erdélyi (UoS), Mihalis Mathioudakis (QUB)

https://forms.gle/cFxeikp9LvQQJWPS6continue to the full article

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UKSKA Town Hall Meeting 2020 – Final Announcement

The next UK-SKASC (UK-SKA Science Committee) Town Hall meeting will be held in Liverpool on March 24th 2020 (http://ska.astro.ljmu.ac.uk/).

*** Registration for participants wanting to present a talk or poster will close on 13th March***

Participants wanting to attend but not present anything can register up until March 22nd, after which time the catering numbers will be fixed. There is no registration fee as all the costs (including lunch) are being covered by STFC. Registrations can be submitted here: http://ska.astro.ljmu.ac.uk/?page_id=40

The meeting aims to bring the UK astronomical community together to provide information on the current status of the SKA project and provide a platform for the community to discuss how best to maximise the long-term science return of the SKA to the UK. The specific focus of this year’s meeting is to engage as widely as possible with early career researchers (ECRs, e.g. masters students, PhD students, junior faculty) in the UK who are involved in SKA-related science.

The meeting will provide a platform for the UK community to share progress on existing science projects, new scientific results, and future science plans in SKA-related science areas, especially where these are spearheaded by ECRs. Given this current scientific and technological landscape, the meeting will provide a forum to explore where the expected major scientific breakthroughs will occur in the SKA-era, and identify areas in which SKA Phase 1 and 2 will likely play a key role in these breakthroughs.

Invited speakers

– Simon Berry (SKA) — SKA Project Overview
– Anna Bonaldi (SKA) — Science with the SKA
– Beatriz Mingo (Open University) — Extragalactic science with the SKA
– Anastasia Ponomareva (University of Oxford) — HI galaxy science with the SKA
– Lina Preston (University of Manchester) — Pulsars with the SKA
– Marco Tazzari (University of Cambridge) — `Cradle of Life’ with the SKA
– David Williams (University of Oxford) — Transients with the SKA
– Laura Wolz (University of Manchester) — Cosmology with the SKA

Discussion sessions

There is an opportunity for delegates to host their own discussion sessions on topics related to the SKA. The format of these parallel sessions is entirely down to the proposer. They could take the form of a round table discussion, a series of short talks, or even a ‘hack’ session. The results of these sessions will then be relayed back to the full conference in a short summary. Proposals can be submitted alongside registration.… continue to the full article

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Hinode-14 / IRIS-11 Meeting: OPEN Registration, Abstract Submission and Travel Support

Abstract Submission, Travel Support Applications, and Registration are now Open.

We welcome contributions on the following scientific themes: photospheric convection and solar magnetic fields, the solar cycle, atmospheric heating (from chromosphere to corona), flares, jets, CMEs, DKIST, and connections to inner heliospheric platforms (Parker Solar Probe and Solar Orbiter).

Confirmed invited speakers: Patrick Antolin, Louise Harra, Aleida Higginson, Shin Imada, Petra Kohutova, Ying Li, Sargam Mulay, Daniel Nobrega-Siverio, Takayoshi Oba, Brandon Panos, Thomas Rimmele, Aki Takeda, Hui Tian, Amy Winebarger.

Hinode-14 / IRIS-11 Joint Science Meeting
28-31 July 2020, Washington DC

http://hinode14.org/
http://iris11.org/continue to the full article

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