Joe Zender

    BepiColombo Deputy Project Scientist and Proba-3 Project Scientist

     

    Main Research Fields

     

    Meteor Research with emphasis on spectral meteor data analysis,

    Solar Corona with emphasis on the study of long-term solar corona analysis, and 

    Mercury Science, especially the interaction of the solar wind with Mercury.

    (see below for more detailed information)

     

     

     

     


    Ongoing collaborations

     

    CNRS, LATMOS, Paris

    Royal Observatory of Belgium, Brussels, Belgium

    University of Graz, Graz, Austria

    University of Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany

    University of Poznan, Poznan, Poland

    University of Stuttgart, Germany

    Vemana Institue of Technology, Bangalore, India

     

    Publications

    Publications in ADS

     

     

     

    Meteor Science

    As member of ESA's Meteor Research Group (MRG), but also member of several amateur or professional observation teams, I have taken part and contributed to several meteor observation campaigns in the past:

    • Leonid Campaigns (1999, 2001, 2002)
    • Geminid Campaign in Norway, 2005
    • Draconid Airplan Campaign in 2010

    Besides operating the cameras, I have a dedicated interest in analyzing the data from the spectral camera. Since some time, we working on a fully automated calibration pipeline that is now reasonable advanced. But still awaiting carefull and thourough validation.

    Collaborators on the meteor efforts are:

    • of course, all members of the MRG group at ESA
    • University of Poznan, Poland
    • Observatoire de Paris, France
    • DLR, Berlin, Germany

    Activities open for research fellow investigations or any other collaborations:

    • validation of the spectral camera calibration processing
    • definition of FITS file content for spectral meteor information

    Physics of the Solar Corona

    Besides the main known problems of Solar Physics (check out here for a good summary), we are interested to better understand which parts of the solar atmosphere are contributing and in which way to the long-term evolution of the solar irradiance, i.e. the solar cycle.

    To help us answer this question, we segment the solar disk into Active Regions, Coronal Holes, Solar Limb, and the rest (Quiet Sun). These segmentation we apply to several wavelength in the EUV and magnetometer data from Proba-2-SWAP and LYRA, and SDO/AIA  and HMI on data from 2010 onwards.

    Collaboration efforts are with:

    • Indian Insitute of Astrophysics, Bangalore, India
    • University of Graz, Austria
    • CNRS, LATMOS, Paris, France
    • Tokyo Astronomical Observatory, Tokyo, Japan
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