The first decades of JOSO -- the Joint Organization for Solar Observations
Abstract
In 1969 a group of leading European solar physicists established the Joint Organization for Solar Observations (JOSO) with the aim to promote international cooperation and to find an outstanding site for a new European solar observatory. After an extensive site test finally in 1979 they found excellent sites on the Canary Islands for the deployment of several national instruments in the framework of the newly founded Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias. The well co-ordinated thriving international cooperation made the continuation of JOSO desirable even after the fulfilment of the originally planned goals. New fields of cooperation were found, in particular the ground-based support of the SOHO mission. After the fall of the “iron curtain” in 1989 intensive collaboration with the Eastern-European institutes was initiated, and JOSO turned into an enterprise for broad scientific and technological exchange.
- Publication:
-
Acta Historica Astronomiae
- Pub Date:
- 2005
- Bibcode:
- 2005AcHA...25..240B