Related papers: Dynamics of solar wind protons reflected by the Mo…
Space weather predictions of the solar wind impacting Earth are usually first based on remote-sensing observations of the solar disc and corona, and eventually validated and/or refined with in-situ measurements taken at the Sun$-$Earth…
We present measurements from the ESA/NASA Cluster mission that show in situ acceleration of ions to energies of 1 MeV outside the bow shock. The observed heating can be associated with the presence of electromagnetic structures with strong…
An important factor limiting our ability to understand the production and propagation of cosmic rays pertains to the effects of heliospheric forces, commonly known as solar modulation. The solar wind is capable of generating time and…
In this paper we explore the effectiveness of an artificial mini-magnetosphere as a potential radiation shelter for long term human space missions. Our study includes the differences that the plasma environment makes to the efficiency of…
Proper characterization of the host star to a planet is a key element to the understanding of its overall properties. The star has a direct impact through the modification of the structure and evolution of the planet atmosphere by being the…
The aim of this work is to investigate the applications of the neutral atom imaging to the environments of the Earth, Mars and Mercury. This innovative technique permits the study of energetic plasma by means of analysing the result of the…
Kinetic effects in plasma flow due to a finite ion temperature and ion reflections in a converging-diverging magnetic nozzle are investigated with collisionless quasineutral hybrid simulations with kinetic ions and isothermal Boltzmann…
Stellar occultations and transits occur when a planetary body passes in front of a star (including our Sun). For objects with an atmosphere, refraction plays an essential role to explain the drops of flux and the aureoles observed during…
The outer heliosphere is a dynamic region shaped largely by the interaction between the solar wind and the interstellar medium. While interplanetary magnetic field and plasma observations by the Voyager spacecraft have significantly…
The Solar Wind Around Pluto (SWAP) instrument on NASA's New Horizon Pluto mission has collected solar wind observations en route from Earth to Pluto, and these observations continue beyond Pluto. Few missions have explored the solar wind in…
The solar corona has been revealed in the past decade to be a highly dynamic nonequilibrium plasma environment. Both the loop-filled coronal base and the extended acceleration region of the solar wind appear to be strongly turbulent, but…
Since the beginning of the space exploration era, solar activity was observed at its lowest level during 2006 to 2009. During this period, the PAMELA space experiment observed spectra for galactic cosmic rays, specifically for protons,…
Incompressible Magnetohydrodynamics is often assumed to describe solar wind turbulence. We use extended self similarity to reveal scaling in structure functions of density fluctuations in the solar wind. Obtained scaling is then compared…
Stellar wind and photon radiation interactions with a planet can cause atmospheric depletion, which may have a potentially catastrophic impact on a planet's habitability. While the implications of photoevaporation on atmospheric erosion…
The solar wind upstream of Mars's bow shock can be described in terms of Alfv\'enic turbulence, with an incompressible energy cascade rate of $10^{-17}$ J m$^{-3}$ s$^{-1}$ at magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) scales. The solar wind has more…
Several lunar missions are planned ahead and there is an increasing demand for efficient photovoltaic power generation in the moon. The knowledge of solar cell operation in the lunar surface obtained during early seventies need to be…
Space weathering is an important surface process occurring on the Moon and other airless bodies, especially those that have no magnetic field. The optical effects of the Moon's space weathering have been largely investigated in the…
Parker Solar Probe (PSP), NASA's latest and closest mission to the Sun, is on a journey to investigate fundamental enigmas of the inner heliosphere. This paper reports initial observations made by the Solar Probe Analyzer for Ions (SPAN-I),…
We propose a new method to estimate ion escape from unmagnetized planets that combines observations and models. Assuming that upstream solar wind conditions are known, a computer model of the interaction between the solar wind and the…
Lyman $\alpha$ observations during an exoplanet transit have proved to be very useful to study the interaction between the stellar wind and the planetary atmosphere. They have been extensively used to constrain planetary system parameters…