Related papers: Heliosphere Meets Interstellar Medium, in a Galact…
We present a pioneering model of the interaction between the solar wind and the surrounding interstellar medium that includes the possibility of different pressures in directions parallel and perpendicular to the magnetic field. The outer…
On its journey through the Galaxy, the Sun passes through diverse regions of the interstellar medium. High-resolution spectroscopic measurements of interstellar absorption lines in spectra of nearby stars show absorption components from…
We review what is currently known about the structure of interstellar material in the solar neighborhood, emphasizing how observations from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) have improved our understanding of how interstellar gas is…
The low density interstellar medium (ISM) close to the Sun and inside of the heliosphere provides a unique laboratory for studying interstellar dust grains. Grain characteristics in the nearby ISM are obtained from observations of…
Properties of interstellar environment near the solar system have been probed by missions like IBEX, Voyager over the last two decades. Although it has been well recognized that properties of cosmic rays up to the PeV energy can be affected…
The interstellar medium (ISM) can be thought of as the galactic atmosphere which fills the space between stars. When clouds within the ISM collapse, stars are born. When the stars die, they return their matter to the surrounding gas.…
A range of astronomical data indicates that ancient supernovae created the galactic environment of the Sun and sculpted the physical properties of the interstellar medium near the heliosphere. In this paper we review the characteristics of…
The intensity and energy spectrum of energetic charged radiation in the heliosphere are significantly influenced by solar activity. This phenomenon is known as solar modulation of galactic cosmic rays. As interplanetary travel becomes a…
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 interstellar medium is the engine room for galactic evolution. While much is known about the conditions within the ISM, many important areas regarding the formation and evolution of the various phases of the ISM leading to star…
The Sun is moving through a warm ($\sim$6500 K) and partly ionized local interstellar cloud (LIC) with a velocity of $\sim$26 km/s. Recent measurements of the ionization of the LIC (Wolff et al., 1999) suggest that interstellar helium in…
The interstellar cloud surrounding the solar system regulates the galactic environment of the Sun and constrains the physical characteristics of the interplanetary medium. This paper compares interstellar dust grain properties observed…
Heliophysics is the field that "studies the nature of the Sun, and how it influences the very nature of space - and, in turn, the atmospheres of planetary bodies and the technology that exists there." However, NASA's Heliophysics Division…
Galactic interstellar dust has a profound impact not only on our observations of objects throughout the Universe, but also on the morphology, star formation, and chemical evolution of the Galaxy. The advent of massive imaging and…
We propose a new method to constrain the actual state of the interstellar cloud that surrounds the solar system. Using Voyager UVS Lyman-alpha sky maps and the powerful principle of invariance, we derive the H distribution all along the…
Direct sampling of interstellar neutral (ISN) atoms close to the Sun enables studies of the very local interstellar medium (VLISM) around the heliosphere. The primary population of ISN helium atoms has, until now, been assumed to reflect…
There is a strong connection between the formation of a disk galaxy and the properties of the interstellar medium (ISM). Theoretical work has typically either focused on the cosmological buildup of a galaxy with a relatively crude model for…
A key indicator of the galactic environment of the Sun is provided by the magnetic field in the interstellar medium (ISM), which influences the shape of the heliosphere. The direction of the nearby interstellar magnetic field (ISMF) is…
Propagation of Galactic cosmic rays (CR) in the interstellar medium (ISM) is among the unsolved problems in particle astrophysics. Interpretation of CR spectrum and composition measurements and their possible link to dark matter crucially…
Until recently the dynamical evolution of the interstellar medium (ISM) was simulated using collisional ionization equilibrium (CIE) conditions. However, the ISM is a dynamical system, in which the plasma is naturally driven out of…