COMS

The Thirteenth International Solar Wind Conference will be organized by the University of Alabama in Huntsville's Center of Space Plasma and Aeronomic Research (CSPAR) and the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, under the direction of Dr's Gary P Zank and Jim Spann. The meeting itself will take place at the Sheraton Keauhou Bay on the Big Island, Hawaii, USA, from 17 to 22 June 2012. The conference will conform to the traditional solar wind themes, addressing the current state of knowledge in the relevant fields of solar and heliospheric physics. In particular, the conference will address: 1) Physics of the corona, origin and acceleration of the solar wind, and relevant observations of the Sun. 2) Dynamical behavior of the interplanetary medium throughout the heliosphere, including large and small scale structures, the evolution of disturbances, dissipative processes, turbulence, and solar energetic particles. 3) Interaction of the solar wind with the interstellar medium and the heliospheric boundaries, and cosmic rays. 4) Interaction of the solar wind with solar system objects and dusty environments, including the Earth's magnetosphere, planets, and comets. 5) Status and prospects of current and future solar wind and heliospheric missions, including new advances in instrumentation. The program will follow a largely traditional format in that it will be composed of invited lectures and contributed talks and posters.

In advance of that historic flyby, the New Horizons mission is sponsoring a scientific meeting to review knowledge of the Pluto System, to inform the planetary science community about the flyby and collaboration/DAP funding opportunities, to discuss and begin to prepare groundbased and spacebased observing proposals, and to provide a venue for scientific predictions.