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The Ionospheric Connection Explorer, or ICON, is a new NASA Explorer mission that will explore the boundary between Earth and space to understand the physical connection between our world and our space environment. This connection is made in the ionosphere, which has long been known to exhibit variability associated with the sun and solar wind. However, it has been recognized in the 21st century that equally significant changes in ionospheric conditions are apparently associated with energy and momentum propagating upward from our own atmosphere. ICON's goal is to weigh the competing impacts of these two drivers as they influence our space environment. Here we describe the specific science objectives that address this goal, as well as the means by which they will be achieved. The instruments selected, the overall performance requirements of the science payload and the operational requirements are also described. ICON's development began in 2013 and the mission is on track for launch in 2017. ICON is developed and managed by the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, with key contributions from several partner institutions.

On 13 March 2010 an unusually long duration event was observed by radio spectrographs onboard the STEREO-B and Wind spacecraft. The event started at about 13:00 UT and ended at approximately 06:00 UT on 14 March. The event presents itself as slow drifting, quasi-continuous emission in a very narrow frequency interval, with an apparent frequency drift from about 625 kHz to approximately 425 kHz. Using the Leblanc, Dulk, and Bougeret (1998) interplanetary density model we determined that the drift velocities of the radio source are $\approx$33km s$^{-1}$ and $\approx$52km s$^{-1}$ for 0.2 and 0.5 times the densities of Leblanc model, respectively with a normalization density of 7.2cm$^{-3}$ at 1AU and assuming harmonic emission. A joint analysis of the radio direction finding data, coronograph white-light observations and modeling revealed that the radio sources appear to be localized in regions of interaction with relatively high density and slow solar wind speed., 12 pages, 4 figures, Accepted in Solar Physics

We calculated the temperature response of the 171 A passbands of the Sun Watcher using APS detectors and image Processing (SWAP) instrument onboard the PRoject for OnBoard Autonomy 2 (PROBA2) satellite. These results were compared to the temperature responses of the Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (EIT) onboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), the Transition Region and Coronal Explorer (TRACE), the twin Extreme Ultraviolet Imagers (EUVI) onboard the Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO) A and B spacecraft, and the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) onboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). Multiplying the wavelength-response functions for each instrument by a series of isothermal synthetic spectra and integrating over the range 165 – 195 A produced temperature-response functions for the six instruments. Each temperature response was then multiplied by sample differential emission-measure functions for four different solar conditions. For any given plasma condition (e.g. quiet Sun, active region), it was found that the overall variation with temperature agreed remarkably well across the six instruments, although the wavelength responses for each instrument have some distinctly different features. Deviations were observed, however, when we compared the response of any one instrument to different solar conditions, particularly for the case of solar flares.

The relationship between eruptive flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) is a topic of ongoing debate, especially regarding the possibility of a common initiation mechanism. We studied the kinematic and hydrodynamic properties of a well-observed event that occurred on 2007 December 31 using data from MESSENGER, RHESSI, and STEREO in order to gain new physical insight into the evolution of the flare and CME. The initiation mechanism was determined by comparing observations to the internal tether-cutting, breakout, and ideal magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) models. Evidence of pre-eruption reconnection immediately eliminated the ideal MHD model. The timing and location of the soft and hard X-ray sources led to the conclusion that the event was initiated by the internal tether-cutting mechanism. In addition, a thermal source was observed to move in a downward direction during the impulsive phase of the event, followed by upward motion during the decay phase, providing evidence for X- to Y-type magnetic reconnection.

We used star density maps obtained from 2MASS to obtain a sample of star clusters in the entire Galactic Plane with |b, Comment: 31 pages, 7 Figures, 3 Tables, Accepted for publication by MNRAS, A version with higher resolution figures can be found at http://astro.kent.ac.uk/~df/

The Sun Watcher with Active Pixels and Image Processing (SWAP) is an EUV solar telescope on board ESA's Project for Onboard Autonomy 2 (PROBA2) mission launched on 2 November 2009. SWAP has a spectral bandpass centered on 17.4 nm and provides images of the low solar corona over a 54x54 arcmin field-of-view with 3.2 arcsec pixels and an imaging cadence of about two minutes. SWAP is designed to monitor all space-weather-relevant events and features in the low solar corona. Given the limited resources of the PROBA2 microsatellite, the SWAP telescope is designed with various innovative technologies, including an off-axis optical design and a CMOS-APS detector. This article provides reference documentation for users of the SWAP image data., 26 pages, 9 figures, 1 movie

The objective of this investigation was to first examine the kinematics of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) using EUV and coronagraph images, and then to make a comparison with theoretical models in the hope to identify the driving mechanisms of the CMEs. We have studied two CMEs which occurred on 2006 Dec. 17 (CME06) and 2007 Dec. 31 (CME07). The models studied in this work were catastrophe, breakout, and toroidal instability models. We found that after the eruption, the accelerations of both events exhibited a drop before increasing again. Our comparisons with the theories suggested that CME06 can be best described by a hybrid of the catastrophe and breakout models while CME07 is most consistent with the breakout model., 9 pages 7 figures

This paper investigates the temporal evolution of temperature, emission measure, energy loss and velocity in a C-class solar flare from both an observational and theoretical perspective. The properties of the flare were derived by following the systematic cooling of the plasma through the response functions of a number of instruments -- RHESSI (>5 MK), GOES-12 (5-30 MK), TRACE 171 A (1 MK) and SOHO/CDS (~0.03-8 MK). These measurements were studied in combination with simulations from the 0-D EBTEL model. At the flare on-set, upflows of ~90 km s-1 and low level emission were observed in Fe XIX, consistent with pre-flare heating and gentle chromospheric evaporation. During the impulsive phase, upflows of ~80 km s-1 in Fe XIX and simultaneous downflows of 20 km s-1 in He I and O V were observed, indicating explosive chromospheric evaporation. The plasma was subsequently found to reach a peak temperature of ~13 MK in approximately 10 minutes. Using EBTEL, conduction was found to be the dominant loss mechanism during the initial ~300s of the decay phase. It was also found to be responsible for driving gentle chromospheric evaporation during this period. As the temperature fell below ~8 MK, and for the next ~4,000s, radiative losses were determined to dominate over conductive losses. The radiative loss phase was accompanied by significant downflows of, 10 pages, 7 figures, 2 tables. Accepted for publication in A&A

Propagating coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are often accompanied by burst signatures in radio spectrogram data. We present Nancay Radioheliograph observations of a moving source of broadband radio emission, commonly referred to as a type IV radio burst (type IVM), which occurred in association with a CME on the 14th of August 2010. The event was well observed at extreme ultraviolet (EUV) wavelengths by SDO/AIA and PROBA2/SWAP, and by the STEREO SECCHI and SOHO LASCO white light (WL) coronagraphs. The EUV and WL observations show the type IVM source to be cospatial with the CME core. The observed spectra is well fitted by a power law with a negative slope, which is consistent with optically thin gyrosynchrotron emission. The spectrum shows no turn over at the lowest Nancay frequencies. By comparing simulated gyrosynchrotron spectra with Nancay Radioheliograph observations, and performing a rigorous parameter search we are able to constrain several key parameters of the underlying plasma. Simulated spectra found to fit the data suggest a nonthermal electron distribution with a low energy cutoff of several tens to 100 keV, with a nonthermal electron density in the range 100-102 cm–3, in a magnetic field of a few Gauss. The nonthermal energy content of the source is found to contain 0.001%-0.1% of the sources thermal energy content. Furthermore, the energy loss timescale for this distribution equates to several hours, suggesting that the electrons could be accelerated during the CME initiation or early propagation phase and become trapped in the magnetic structure of the CME core without the need to be replenished.

We present observational results of a type II burst associated with a CME-CME interaction observed in the radio and white-light wavelength range. We applied radio direction-finding techniques to observations from the STEREO and Wind spacecraft, the results of which were interpreted using white-light coronagraphic measurements for context. The results of the multiple radio-direction finding techniques applied were found to be consistent both with each other and with those derived from the white-light observations of coronal mass ejections (CMEs). The results suggest that the Type II burst radio emission is causally related to the CMEs interaction.

We report on Transition Region And Coronal Explorer 171 A observations of the GOES X20 class flare on 2001 April 2 that shows EUV flare ribbons with intense diffraction patterns. Between the 11th to 14th order, the diffraction patterns of the compact flare ribbon are dispersed into two sources. The two sources are identified as emission from the Fe IX line at 171.1 A and the combined emission from Fe X lines at 174.5, 175.3, and 177.2 A. The prominent emission of the Fe IX line indicates that the EUV-emitting ribbon has a strong temperature component near the lower end of the 171 A temperature response ({approx}0.6-1.5 MK). Fitting the observation with an isothermal model, the derived temperature is around 0.65 MK. However, the low sensitivity of the 171 A filter to high-temperature plasma does not provide estimates of the emission measure for temperatures above {approx}1.5 MK. Using the derived temperature of 0.65 MK, the observed 171 A flux gives a density of the EUV ribbon of 3 x 10{sup 11} cm{sup -3}. This density is much lower than the density of the hard X-ray producing region ({approx}10{sup 13} to 10{sup 14} cm{sup -3}) suggesting that the EUV sources, thoughmore » closely related spatially, lie at higher altitudes.« less