Fwd: VERSIM newsletter - two important reminders

[Jonathan]

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: František Němec <frantis...@matfyz.cuni.cz>
Date: Sun, May 10, 2026 at 9:20 AM
Subject: VERSIM newsletter - two important reminders
To:

Dear colleagues,

Two important reminders for the near future:

1)

The VERSIM 2026 Workshop deadline for abstract submissions, financial support applications, and school applications is on 24 May, i.e., in two weeks!

The workshop will take place in Sopron, Hungary, from 7-11 September. It will be preceded by a three-day school, aimed primarily at students and early-career researchers (3-5 September).

The workshop website is:

https://versim2026.epss.hu/

You will find all the important info there - please take a moment to have a look and don't forget to submit your abstract!

2)

The meeting of our VERSIM/GEM Journal Club will take place on Wednesday (May 13). The guest speaker Dr Shri Kanekal from the GSFC, NASA will present the space weather applications of the NASA Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) mission.

The abstract and the Zoom link are provided below. More details about the journal club can be found here: https://aurora.troja.mff.cuni.cz/versim/index_jc.html

See you on Wednesday!

Best wishes,
Mirek, Rachel, Jodie, Harriet, Yang and Suhail


Date and time: 13 May @ 9am PDT / 12pm EDT / 4pm UTC / 5pm BST / 6pm CEST 
Zoom link: https://universityofexeter.zoom.us/j/94859939623?pwd=MWtlb3K4pwAdb5qA5TaL2tJlFfSaPb.1
Speaker: Dr Shri Kanekal  (GSFC, NASA)
Title: Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe mission and Space Weather

Abstract:

NASA's Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) mission investigates two of the most important overarching issues in heliophysics today, namely, the acceleration of energetic particles and interaction of the solar wind with the local interstellar medium. Carrying a comprehensive suite of ten instruments, IMAP was successfully launched and placed in a Lissajous orbit around the Lagrange point L1. Additionally, IMAP has an important Space weather aspect, the IMAP Active Link for Real-Time (I-ALiRT). Space Weather encompasses adverse conditions originating in space, causing disruption of satellites, inflicting harmful radiation to  humans in space, as well as disabling terrestrial electric power grids, leading to socioeconomic losses and impacts on society.  Scientific understanding of physical phenomena driving space weather leading to operational forecasting and thereby mitigating these adverse effects is critical to life on Earth. 
Five of the ten instruments on IMAP make measurements that are critical for advancing space weather research and operational forecasting. These measurements are continuously telemetered in near real-time as I-ALiRT space weather data system.  In this talk we provide a brief overview of the IMAP mission, describe the I-ALiRT instruments and measurements, real-time data flow architecture, and publicly available space weather data products.