Related papers: The Solar Orbiter mission -- Science overview

We investigate the solar phenomena associated with the origin of the solar energetic particle (SEP) event observed on 2013 April 11 by a number of spacecraft distributed in the inner heliosphere over a broad range of heliolongitudes. We use…

The SUNRISE balloon-borne solar observatory, consisting of a 1~m aperture telescope that provided a stabilized image to a UV filter imager and an imaging vector polarimeter, carried out its second science flight in June 2013. It provided…

Definition of habitability depends on the organisms under consideration. One way to determine habitability of some environment is to compare its certain parameters to environments where extremophilic micro-organisms thrive on Earth. We can…

Context. On 2022 January 20, the Energetic Particle Detector (EPD) on board Solar Orbiter measured a solar energetic particle (SEP) event showing unusual first arriving particles from the anti-Sun direction. Near-Earth spacecraft separated…

We present an analysis of surveying the inner Solar System for objects that may pose some threat to the Earth. Most of the analysis is based on understanding the capability provided by Sentinel, a concept for an infrared space-based…

The solar corona and young solar wind may be characterized by critical surfaces -- the sonic, Alfv\'en, and first plasma-$\beta$ unity surfaces -- that demarcate regions where the solar wind flow undergoes certain crucial transformations.…

Using data collected by the Indian Mars Orbiter Mission in October 2021, we investigated coronal regions of the Sun by analyzing the Doppler spectral width of radio signals to estimate solar wind velocity. A simplified equation is…

The concept of putting a neutrino detector in close orbit of the sun has been unexplored until very recently. The primary scientific return is to vastly enhance our understanding of the solar interior, which is a major NASA goal.…

Direct detection and characterization of Earth-like planets around Sun-like stars is a core task for evaluating the prevalence of habitability and life in the Universe. Here, we discuss a promising option for achieving this goal, which is…

The Solar Probe Cup (SPC) is a Faraday Cup instrument onboard NASA's Parker Solar Probe (PSP) spacecraft designed to make rapid measurements of thermal coronal and solar wind plasma. The spacecraft is in a heliocentric orbit that takes it…

We present the design and commissioning of Project Solaris, a global network of autonomous observatories. Solaris is a Polish scientific undertaking aimed at the detection and characterization of circumbinary exoplanets and eclipsing binary…

The Sun Watcher with Active Pixels and Image Processing (SWAP) is an EUV solar telescope on board ESA's Project for Onboard Autonomy 2 (PROBA2) mission launched on 2 November 2009. SWAP has a spectral bandpass centered on 17.4 nm and…

Space weather is among the most powerful and least understood forces shaping planetary atmospheres. In our Solar System, we observe its effects directly: atmospheric escape, chemical disruption, and spectacular auroral displays. Yet for…

The purpose of this document is to discuss the scientific case of a space mission to the ice giants Uranus and Neptune and their satellite systems and its relevance to advance our understanding of the ancient past of the Solar System and,…

In this work, the orbital evolution of these objects that are located in the geostationary orbit (GEO) is analyzed. Knowing this, the possibility of using a solar sail is considered to help to clean the space environment. The main natural…

Mini-EUSO is a telescope observing the Earth in the ultraviolet band from the International Space Station. It is a part of the JEM-EUSO program, paving the way to future larger missions, such as KEUSO and POEMMA, devoted primarily to the…

As a key feature, NASA's Parker Solar Probe (PSP) and ESA-NASA's Solar Orbiter (SO) missions cooperate to trace solar wind and transients from their sources on the Sun to the inner interplanetary space. The goal of this work is to…

Robustly identifying the solar sources of individual packets of solar wind measured in interplanetary space remains an open problem. We set out to see if this problem is easier to tackle using solar wind measurements closer to the Sun than…

The NASA New Horizons spacecraft flies past Pluto on July 14, 2015, carrying two instruments that detect charged particles. Pluto has a tenuous, extended atmosphere that is escaping the weak gravity of the planet. The interaction of the…

Astrophysical measurements away from the 1 AU orbit of Earth can enable several astrophysical science cases that are challenging or impossible to perform from Earthbound platforms, including: building a detailed understanding of the…