Welcome message from Tim Killeen, President of the Space Physics and Aeronomy (SPA) Section of the American Geophysical Union (AGU)

Welcome to our Web Open House for the Space Physics and Aeronomy science community!

So, you might ask, who are we? And what is this open house all about?

Well, first of all, the Space Physics and Aeronomy section of AGU is the professional "home" for the worldwide community of space physicists. We study that part of nature that is sometimes called the "Sun-Earth connection" or the "Earth-in-Space". Elements of our scientific field include the Sun itself, the high solar atmosphere or corona, the streams of particles flowing outwards from the Sun, interplanetary space, and the Earth's magnetosphere and upper atmosphere. We also study analogous interactions at other planets: the Sun-Venus connection, the Sun-Mars Connection, etc.

You might be thinking that this area covers a lot of --and you are right! It is also an exciting, fast-moving scientific field that is relevant to our lives. For example, two of the many questions we ask are:

• how could life have evolved on a small blue planet called Earth, bathed in radiation from a nearby star?
• what is the "weather" like in space, and how does it affect our technological systems?

Through this SPA Web Open House, we wish to share the excitement of our research with you. Here you will find links to educational materials that explain the Sun-Earth connection in language that can be understood by all. And, through links we provide to real-time data sources, you will be able to have a look at some of the actual data and images that SPA researchers use to study our space environment and try to understand the complexities of the Sun-Earth connection.

The Web Open House is a new idea for us and is a "work in progress". Check it out--and let us know what you think!

We are planning another Open House in the Spring and look forward to welcoming you back then.

Tim

The SPA Web Open House is sponsored by the Special Projects fund of the Council of the American Geophysical Union (AGU). AGU is an international professional society that represents over 35,000 earth and space scientists working in more than 160 countries worldwide.