Invitation

The XII meeting of Finnish space researchers FinCOSPAR 2009 takes place on 3-5.9.2009 at Rokua Spa in Rokua National Park, about 80 km from Oulu. The meeting is organized by the Department of Physics, University of Oulu together with the Finnish National COSPAR committee.

Year 2009 is the International Year of Astronomy and we celebrate 400 years of the first telescope observations by Galileo Galilei. The series of astronomical discoveries that started that time continues until this day. They have changed natural sciences and deeply influenced our views on the World around us. In 2009 we also celebrate 400 years from the publication of Johannes Kepler′s Astronomia Nova, delineating his discoveries, which are now called Kepler′s first two laws of planetary motion. And it is almost exactly forty years ago, when the Apollo project put the first human on the Moon.

The meeting brings together about 50 space researchers from the University of Helsinki, University of Turku, University of Oulu, Finnish Geodetic Institute, Finnish Meteorological Institute, Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory, as well as our colleagues from the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and the University of Wurzburg, Germany. The program of the conference consists of a dozen of invited talks and about 20 contributed presentations and about 15 posters. It covers various topics including the physics of the Earth magnetosphere and ionosphere, solar physics, influence of the Sun on the Earth and its climate, solar system planets and planetary rings, stars and star formation, the Galaxy, other galaxies and supermassive black holes in their centres, structure formation in the Universe, physics of plasmas in astrophysical and geophysical contexts, and space instruments.

The working language of the conference is English. The program is posted under "program". More information about the meeting can be obtained from the organizing committee.

Welcome to the meeting!