The Royal Military College's Annual Physics for Defence Lecture 2024 will be presented in Sawyer Theatre (S 1303) by Dr. Gregg Wade on 4 March 2024, 14:40 - 15:30.
Public Lecture: "Living in the shadow of a monster: Magnetic activity of the Sun and the terrestrial space environment".
Contact: LCdr Steve Semenuk steve.semenuk@rmc.ca
The Sun is a convecting, rotating ball of plasma that generates intense magnetic fields deep in its interior. As these fields appear at the solar surface they are stressed and torn by powerful fluid motions, leading to violent reconnection and energy release events. the resultant explosions produce storms of particles and radiation that propagate through the solar system. This presentation will describe the general characteristics of solar activity, and discuss in some detail the impacts of that activity on the Earth’s near space environment. We will also briefly discuss examples of other solar system planets and exotic exoplanetary systems exhibiting star-planet interactions.