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Acceleration and Propagation of Solar Energetic Particles
Klein, Karl-Ludwig; Dalla, Silvia
Solar Energetic Particles (SEPs) are an important component of Space Weather, including radiation hazard to humans and electronic equipment, and the ionisation of the Earth's atmosphere. We review the key observations of SEPs, our current understanding of their acceleration and transport, and discuss how this knowledge is incorporated within Space…
Selection of the InSight Landing Site
Golombek, M.; Charalambous, C.; Piqueux, S. +32 more
The selection of the Discovery Program InSight landing site took over four years from initial identification of possible areas that met engineering constraints, to downselection via targeted data from orbiters (especially Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) Context Camera (CTX) and High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) images), to sele…
Towards a Unified View of Inhomogeneous Stellar Winds in Isolated Supergiant Stars and Supergiant High Mass X-Ray Binaries
Fürst, Felix; Kretschmar, Peter; Wilms, Jörn +13 more
Massive stars, at least ∼10 times more massive than the Sun, have two key properties that make them the main drivers of evolution of star clusters, galaxies, and the Universe as a whole. On the one hand, the outer layers of massive stars are so hot that they produce most of the ionizing ultraviolet radiation of galaxies; in fact, the first massive…
The Colour and Stereo Surface Imaging System (CaSSIS) for the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter
Mangold, N.; Hansen, C. J.; Cremonese, G. +58 more
The Colour and Stereo Surface Imaging System (CaSSIS) is the main imaging system onboard the European Space Agency's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) which was launched on 14 March 2016. CaSSIS is intended to acquire moderately high resolution (4.6 m/pixel) targeted images of Mars at a rate of 10-20 images per day from a roughly circular orbit 400 …
The Atmospheric Dynamics of Venus
Sánchez-Lavega, Agustín; Imamura, Takeshi; Lebonnois, Sebastien +2 more
We review our current knowledge of the atmospheric dynamics of Venus prior to the Akatsuki mission, in the altitude range from the surface to approximately the cloud tops located at about 100 km altitude. The three-dimensional structure of the wind field in this region has been determined with a variety of techniques over a broad range of spatial …
Coronal Magnetic Field Models
Riley, Pete; Wiegelmann, Thomas; Petrie, Gordon J. D.
Coronal magnetic field models use photospheric field measurements as boundary condition to model the solar corona. We review in this paper the most common model assumptions, starting from MHD-models, magnetohydrostatics, force-free and finally potential field models. Each model in this list is somewhat less complex than the previous one and makes …
North-South Asymmetries in Earth's Magnetic Field. Effects on High-Latitude Geospace
Reistad, J. P.; Laundal, K. M.; Milan, S. E. +5 more
The solar-wind magnetosphere interaction primarily occurs at altitudes where the dipole component of Earth's magnetic field is dominating. The disturbances that are created in this interaction propagate along magnetic field lines and interact with the ionosphere-thermosphere system. At ionospheric altitudes, the Earth's field deviates significantl…
Solar Wind Interaction and Impact on the Venus Atmosphere
Barabash, Stas; Stenberg Wieser, Gabriella; Futaana, Yoshifumi +1 more
Venus has intrigued planetary scientists for decades because of its huge contrasts to Earth, in spite of its nickname of "Earth's Twin". Its invisible upper atmosphere and space environment are also part of the larger story of Venus and its evolution. In 60s to 70s, several missions (Venera and Mariner series) explored Venus-solar wind interaction…
Venus Surface Composition Constrained by Observation and Experiment
Helbert, Jörn; Gilmore, Martha; Treiman, Allan +1 more
New observations from the Venus Express spacecraft as well as theoretical and experimental investigation of Venus analogue materials have advanced our understanding of the petrology of Venus melts and the mineralogy of rocks on the surface. The VIRTIS instrument aboard Venus Express provided a map of the southern hemisphere of Venus at ∼1 µm…
Pulsar-Wind Nebulae and Magnetar Outflows: Observations at Radio, X-Ray, and Gamma-Ray Wavelengths
Mereghetti, Sandro; Reynolds, Stephen P.; Pavlov, George G. +3 more
We review observations of several classes of neutron-star-powered outflows: pulsar-wind nebulae (PWNe) inside shell supernova remnants (SNRs), PWNe interacting directly with interstellar medium (ISM), and magnetar-powered outflows. We describe radio, X-ray, and gamma-ray observations of PWNe, focusing first on integrated spectral-energy distributi…