ITM Physics Laboratory
 

Geospace Dynamics Constellation (GDC)

Exploring the Heart of Space Weather with the Geospace Dynamics Constellation

Doug Rowland | The Geospace Dynamics Constellation, or GDC, will provide the first direct global measurements of Earth’s atmospheric interface to space — a region where beauty and hazards co-exist - where space weather disturbances impact communication and navigation signals, satellite orbits, and induced currents that can trigger power outages on Earth. GDC’s unprecedented multi-point observations in the heart of this interface region will provide a generational shift in perspective on this region, allowing scientists to understand this complex, interconnected system as a whole. NASA Science Theater at AGU 2020!

The GDC Mission constellation concept

Find out more at the GDC Website

GDC Mission webpage. Within the region connecting our home to space, we see how weather from above and below impact our ability to live and work.

Placeholder Image

The Latest GDC Fact Sheet

The latest version fo the 2 page fact sheet is on our ITM resource page and other GDC specific resources are at the mission website .

Placeholder Image

Planned GDC Ephemeris

GDC planned ephemeris data now available for download at the mission website. Start planning now for how you will interact with GDC!

Upcoming Events

Wednesday, December 11, 2024
08:00 AM - 05:00 PM
AGU meeting
AGU24: annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union.
Read more about this event
Thursday, December 12, 2024
08:00 AM - 05:00 PM
AGU meeting
AGU24: annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union.
Read more about this event
Friday, December 13, 2024
08:00 AM - 05:00 PM
AGU meeting
AGU24: annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union.
Read more about this event
 

Featured Videos

A Solar Wind Sea Shanty

Parodying the classic sea shanty "The Wellerman," “The Solar Wind: A Heliophysics Sea Shanty” illuminates one of the primary connections between the Sun and Earth, the solar wind. This video can be shared and downloaded at YouTube .

Welcome to the Ionosphere!

This little-explored region exists between space and Earth. It is home to the aurora, the international space station, a variety of satellites, and radio communication waves. Join us as we venture to this interface to space! This video can be downloaded from the Scientific Visualization Studio

Chasing Lightning: Spritacular

Follow along and watch this wonderful introduction to our newest citizen science group, Spritacular, as they learn more about all kinds of lightning, from elves, sprits, to transient luminous events. Get involved at Spritacular.org

Discovering Earth’s Third Global Energy Field

For nearly 60 years, scientists have studied the "polar wind," a stream of particles escaping Earth's poles into space, theorizing that a weak, unmeasured ambipolar electric field drives the outflow, a theory finally supported by recent findings. Learn more here: https://go.nasa.gov/3XcDDLD

 

Citizen Science

Placeholder Image

You, too, can get involved with NASA Science

Science is for everyone and we want you to get involved! Check out all the amazing ways at the Goddard Citizen Science website!

Placeholder Image

Spritacular

Join the chase of lightning from the ground, engage with a global community of observers, and contribute your observations for NASA Science at Spritacular!

Placeholder Image

Aurorasaurus

Want to learn more about the aurora and help scientist understand these dancing lights? Join up with others at Aurorasaurus and even get emails when the aurora might be in your area!

Placeholder Image

Radio JOVE

Space is filled with radio waves! Help scientists learn more about where all these waves come from and how they are used to tell us more about our place in the universe at Radio JOVE.

Local News

 

In this recently accepted paper, we analyzed citizen scientist data to study the Gannon Storm of 10 May 2024. We gathered 69...

Monday, November 18, 2024
 

This paper explores quiet-time STEVE events, demonstrating that they share similar characteristics with substorm-time STEVE d...

Thursday, November 14, 2024
 

Within this paper we discuss the process used to create an amended dataset and store it on the SPDF. The operational software...

Thursday, November 14, 2024
 

This paper is from the LAMP (Loss from auroral microbursts precipitation) Rocket mission. We used multiple ground based obser...

Tuesday, November 12, 2024
 

In this paper, we use a new ionospheric data assimilation technique, Lompe (Local mapping of the polar ionospheric electrodyn...

Wednesday, October 30, 2024
 
 

Earth Observatory Picture

Windy City of Lights