Science Briefing
High Altitude Observatory staff traveled to Chile and New Mexico last
month for a classic HAO event: observing and documenting a total solar
eclipse. This one passed over Putre, Chile, where several minutes of
totality on 3 November gave Kim Streander, Dick White, David Elmore,
Alice Lecinski, and Greg Card an opportunity to record film and digital
images from three coronal cameras. (Other cameras were trained on the
researchers themselves. The Cable News Network filed a report from Chile,
and British and local media were also on hand.) Some cirrus was present
over Putre, but the group hopes that analysis will show the eclipse images
were not significantly hurt. The eclipse coincided with the "dia de todos los
Santos" (All Saints' Day) celebration and a regional fair, producing a mix of
"llamas, tourists, Native Americans, and scientists," as Dick and Kim put it.
Their summary after three hectic days of instrument placement, calibration,
and data collection: "Everyone is tired. Packing. Like Chile! Sell condo, car,
etc. Send proceeds! Enlisting in Chilean army."
The Chilean effort was complemented by the third launch of the Woods
rocket, managed by HAO's Tom Woods. The NASA rocket left White Sands
Missile Range on the day of the eclipse bearing several new x-ray and
ultraviolet imagers. Full-disk solar irradiance values and coronal images
were taken at wavelengths of 17.5, 30.4, and 121.6 nanometers (the primary
emission wavelengths for iron, helium, and hydrogen in the solar corona) to
supplement the Chilean data. The project's other goal, in conjunction with
the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, is
to study variability of the solar extreme ultraviolet irradiance and its
influence on the upper atmosphere. HAO investigators include Tom, Don
Hassler, Tom Holzer, Gary Rottman, and graduate student John Worden.
Engineers Greg Ucker and Ray Wrigley worked with the NCAR machine
shop to fabricate the new imagers.
This photo of the solar corona was taken during the total eclipse at Putre,
Chile, at 12:18 Greenwich mean time on 3 November. The Newkirk camera
system photographed the corona in red light through a filter that suppressed
the bright inner corona in order to show the much fainter streamers of the
outer corona at the same time. Because the photograph was taken late in the
eclipse, prominences on the east limb are visible. (For this and for solar
images in general, north is at the top, east at left, and west at right.) Other
features of note are the polar plumes and the nonradial nature of the
southwestern streamer. A coronal mass ejection was observed in the vicinity
of this streamer by NCAR's Mauna Loa Solar Observatory about ten hours
after the eclipse. (Photo courtesy Alice Lecinski and HAO.)
One of NCAR's first and finest was honored recently in a daylong set of talks.
The Philip Duncan Thompson Symposium, held at the Mesa Lab on 30
November, recapped the scientific and personal influence of Phil,
NCAR's first associate director and an atmospheric scientist with over four
decades of accomplishment. John Lewis (National Severe Storms Laboratory)
presented a meteorological family tree that began with 19th-century pioneer
Hermann von Helmholtz and extended to Phil, his NCAR colleagues Joe
Tribbia and Akira Kasahara, and others who have "used mathematical
physics to seek solutions to dynamical problems."
Though a number of people who wished to express their high regard for
Phil were unable to attend in person, their thoughts were included in written
testimonials to Phil. For example, long-time friend Aksel Wiin-Nielsen
(assistant director of NCAR's Laboratory for Atmospheric Sciences at the time
Phil was its director) could not attend. However, Joe Tribbia delivered
Aksel's scheduled speech, which addressed Phil's long-term scientific and
adminstrative achievements and afforded a personal glimpse of Phil's warm
and intelligent personality. Mel Shapiro (NOAA) read a letter from Arnt
Eliassen, a long-time colleague now based in Norway, who noted that Phil's
scientific intuition "was very much guided by his strong aesthetic sense. He
demanded from scientific theory that it should be beautiful and elegant."
Eliassen also cited Phil's "wonderful command of the English language."
Speakers present included Earl Droessler (North Carolina State University),
Joseph Fletcher (NOAA), Will Kellogg (NCAR), Chuck Leith (Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory), Doug Lilly (University of Oklahoma),
Gerald North (Texas A&M University), and WarrenWashington
(NCAR).
According to Joe, "The symposium succeeded in honoring Phil's
accomplishments in science and his leadership role at the Institute for
Advanced Studies, the Air Force Cambridge Research Lab, the Joint
Numerical Weather Prediction Unit, and NCAR, in a manner in which Phil
would approve--discussing the scientific merit of these activities."
Among the more personal reminiscences shared was the influence of
Phil's father, a botanist at the University of Illinois. Chester Newton (NCAR)
noted that other faculty from Illinois would visit Phil's boyhood home
bearing puzzles and quizzes, which Phil loved. "Phil was also a historian of
science," recalls NCAR archivist Diane Rabson, who recorded the symposium
for posterity. "He was active in our oral history projects and served on the
NCAR history committee."
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Edited by Bob Henson,
bhenson@ucar.edu
Last revised: Wed Mar 29 12:22:22 MST 2000