Associate Professor Colin Waters, an Avondale graduate of 1985, is engaged in cutting-edge research at the Centre for Space Physics, University of Newcastle, NSW.

Space physics is concerned with the near-earth space environment, which includes the ionosphere (approximately 100-1,000 km from earth) and the region from there to approximately 100,000 km out. These regions contain the satellites on which we depend for communications, the internet, weather forecasting, remote sensing of the composition of the atmosphere (e.g. ozone) and global positioning systems (GPS). If we are to commit billions of dollars worth of hardware to space, it is important to gain an understanding of the environment where this technology is to operate, which now has strategic importance for many countries.

Research in space physics is also important because the earth orbits in the outer atmosphere of the sun, and solar activity has significant impacts on earth systems. High-energy atomic particles from the sun bombard the near-earth space environment, especially during solar magnetic “storms”, with many effects on earth technologies. This solar-terrestrial interplay is called “space weather”.

Charged particles from the sun are a factor in the spectacular near-earth space event known as the aurora, seen in far north and south latitudes. Space physicists are also researching the many still-unsolved questions on how auroras are generated.

Scientists derive information about the near-earth space environment from satellites and from ground-based remote sensing instrumentation. The main data instrument is the magnetometer, which detects small variations in the earth’s magnetic field due to space weather processes. Researchers also use radio technology, including data from twenty-four over-the-horizon radar systems in various parts of the world, including one at Bruny Island, Tasmania, one near Invercargill, New Zealand, and one under construction near Adelaide.

Associate Professor Waters is involved in a recent exciting development in which space scientists have partnered with commercial satellite operators to access scientific data via more than seventy commercial satellites giving superb coverage of near-earth space. The leading partners are the Boeing Company, Iridium LLC, the National Science Foundation (USA) and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Associate Professor Waters’ involvement is through a ten-year research collaboration with the John Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.

Scientists are using the satellite data to research auroral electric currents, including their intensity, location and dynamics. The data also reveal signatures of radiation that cause operational anomalies in satellites. The researchers use the experimental data to construct computer simulations predicting space physics processes in much the same way as computer simulations are used to predict earth surface weather.

Associate Professor Waters has developed computer simulations revealing the effects of ionosphere variations on earth-to-space signal transmission. This work has significant applications to data quality in global positioning systems (GPS) and in radio astronomy. Associate Professor Waters has published over seventy papers in space physics.