CRD Expands Space Weather Monitoring on Mt. Aragats
Jospeh Dagdigian
January 11, 2010
Prof. Chilingarian describing the international Space Environmental Viewing and Analysis Network (SEVAN) to President Serge Sargsyan and his delegation at the Croatian SEVAN site.
Sheibenik, Croatia - On September 4-18, 2009 a delegation from the Yerevan Physics Institute (YerPhI) consisting of Prof. Ashot Chilingarian, YerPhi's director and head of its Cosmic Ray Division (CRD), with CRD scientists and engineers participated in the International conference on the Heliophysical Phenomena and the Earth Environment in Shibenik, Croatia. The regional meeting of Balkan, Black Sea, and Caspian Sea participants was held for the third time within the framework of the International Heliophysical Year, now being continued as the International Space Weather Initiative (ISWI). This initiative is supported by NASA and the United Nation's Outer Space Office in Vienna, Austria.
Armenia's Cosmic Ray Division has deployed Armenian designed cosmic ray particle detectors in Croatia and Bulgaria, with other countries to follow in the near future. The new networked arrays of particle detectors are part of the Space Environment Viewing and Analysis Network (SEVAN) which was developed largely by young CRD scientists under the direction of Prof. Chilingarian and CRD's senior staff with international funding.
The result of CRD's research was presented in a number of papers by Prof. Ashot Chilingarian, Bagrat Malyan, Armen Hovhannisyan, A. Daryan, Karen Arakelyan, and Artur Reymers. Prof. Chilingarian was one of four scientists especially invited to report to the conference on particle detectors for space weather and solar physics research. The other invited speakers were from research institutes in the US and Russia. Armenian PhD students actively participated in the presentation of two reports at a training session on "Cosmic Rays and Neutron Monitor".
President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan, minister of Economy Nerses Yeritsyan, and minister of Foreign Affairs Edward Nalbandian who were visiting Croatia on September 8 met with the Croatian and Armenian physicists at the Zagreb observatory and congratulated them on the successful collaboration and the launch of the SEVAN equipment in Croatia.
The SEVAN system of networked cosmic ray monitors received support at the meeting in Croatia, and is scheduled to receive a boost in 2010.
For more information on this topic and on the Cosmic Ray Division visit http://www.crd.yerphi.am/press_releases/ and http://www.crdfriends.org .