Search Publications
The Physical Processes of CME/ICME Evolution
Vršnak, Bojan; Lugaz, Noé; Liu, Ying D. +4 more
As observed in Thomson-scattered white light, coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are manifest as large-scale expulsions of plasma magnetically driven from the corona in the most energetic eruptions from the Sun. It remains a tantalizing mystery as to how these erupting magnetic fields evolve to form the complex structures we observe in the solar wind a…
Magnetospheric Science Objectives of the Juno Mission
Hansen, C. J.; Kurth, W. S.; McComas, D. J. +18 more
In July 2016, NASA's Juno mission becomes the first spacecraft to enter polar orbit of Jupiter and venture deep into unexplored polar territories of the magnetosphere. Focusing on these polar regions, we review current understanding of the structure and dynamics of the magnetosphere and summarize the outstanding issues. The Juno mission profile in…
Geoeffective Properties of Solar Transients and Stream Interaction Regions
Balogh, A.; Kilpua, E. K. J.; von Steiger, R. +1 more
Interplanetary Coronal Mass Ejections (ICMEs), their possible shocks and sheaths, and co-rotating interaction regions (CIRs) are the primary large-scale heliospheric structures driving geospace disturbances at the Earth. CIRs are followed by a faster stream where Alfvénic fluctuations may drive prolonged high-latitude activity. In this paper we hi…
Origins of the Ambient Solar Wind: Implications for Space Weather
Cranmer, Steven R.; Riley, Pete; Gibson, Sarah E.
The Sun's outer atmosphere is heated to temperatures of millions of degrees, and solar plasma flows out into interplanetary space at supersonic speeds. This paper reviews our current understanding of these interrelated problems: coronal heating and the acceleration of the ambient solar wind. We also discuss where the community stands in its abilit…
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 …