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We’re very happy to have Dr Ken Tapping presenting to us.

Astronomer with the National Research Council’s Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory near Penticton.

Presentation

”The Sun, Earth, and us’

Brief :

Now, more than at any time in our history, we appreciate the relationship we have with the Sun, and how our increasingly infrastructurally-dependent way of life is making us more and more vulnerable to the Sun’s bad behaviour.

This talk will cover three topics. First, a look at the Sun as a star and the role of magnetic fields in its structure and activity. Secondly, how did we have liquid water on the Earth 3.8 billion years ago, when the Sun was 40% fainter than it is now?  We look at the role of the greenhouse effect in regulating the Earth’s temperature from then to maybe the Industrial Revolution. What happens from here on? Finally we discuss solar activity and space weather, its effects on our power, transportation and communication infrastructure and our exploration of space.

We look at national and international networks of solar monitoring programmes.  We look at Canadian solar monitoring activities and the development of our new solar monitoring instrument, “The Next Generation Solar Flux Monitor”, which is now going into action here at the NRC’s Dominion Radio

Astrophysical Observatory in Penticton.

Bio :

Dr. Ken Tapping is an astronomer with the National Research Council’s Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory near Penticton.  His interest in radio astronomy began in his teens when he turned the gift of a Cossor Marine Radar Kit into a radio telescope.

Ken was born in Kent, England and earned his doctorate from the University of Utrecht in The Netherlands.  He worked with the UK Science Research Council as a radio astronomer and then joined Canada’s NRC in 1975 at the Algonquin Radio Observatory in Ontario.  The NRC has had a radio “stethoscope” on the sun since 1947, and Ken became Head of the Solar Radio Monitoring Programme in 1985.

The Monitoring Program takes daily measurements of solar activity at the 10.7 centimetre radio wavelength and transmits this critical information world-wide to space agencies, other government agencies, and industries.

During his career, solar plasma physics has been Ken’s main research interest.  In 1990 he moved to the DRAO in British Columbia, and recently presided over the installation of a Next Generation Solar Flux Monitor that was ready to observe in multiple wavelengths during the 2017 Solar Eclipse.

Ken started writing astronomy articles for the general public in 1992 and by his own admission, “doesn’t know when to stop.”