Related papers: Local Interstellar Matter: The view from Paris
The Interstellar Medium (ISM) is a complex, multi-phase system, where the history of the stars occurs. The processes of birth and death of stars are strongly coupled to the dynamics of the ISM. The observed chaotic and diffusive motions of…
During the solar journey through galactic space, variations in the physical properties of the surrounding interstellar medium (ISM) modify the heliosphere and modulate the flux of galactic cosmic rays (GCR) at the surface of the Earth, with…
The interaction of the heliosphere with interstellar clouds has attracted interest since the late 1920's, both with a view to explaining apparent quasi-periodic climate "catastrophes" as well as periodic mass extinctions. Until recently,…
Because of the dynamic nature of the interstellar medium, the Sun should have encountered a variety of different interstellar environments in its lifetime. As the solar wind interacts with the surrounding interstellar medium to form a…
In the interstellar medium of the Milky Way, certain elements -- e.g., Mg, Si, Al, Ca, Ti, Fe -- reside predominantly in interstellar dust grains. These grains absorb, scatter, and emit electromagnetic radiation, heat the interstellar…
The study of the interstellar medium (ISM) in the X-rays has entered a golden age with the advent of the X-ray observatories XMM-Newton and Chandra. High-energy resolution allowed to study dust spectroscopic features with unprecedented…
This paper reviews past research and new studies underway of the local interstellar environment and its changing influence on the heliosphere. The size, shape, and physical properties of the heliosphere outside of the heliopause are…
Interstellar clouds form the cosmic "ecosystem" through which the Sun moves. Understanding the physical properties of nearby interstellar material, in sufficient detail to evaluate historical variations in the solar galactic environment,…
Combined heliosphere-astronomical data and models enrich our understanding both of effects the solar galactic environment might have on the inner heliosphere, and of interstellar clouds. Present data suggest that FeII/DI increases toward…
Intergalactic space is filled with a pervasive medium of ionized gas, the Intergalactic Medium (IGM). A residual neutral fraction is detected in the spectra of Quasi-Stellar Objects at both low and high redshifts, revealing a highly…
The chemical makeup of our solar system is a reflection of Galactic chemical evolution in the local interstellar medium (ISM) over the past ~9 Ga before the formation of the solar system. Although the incorporated ISM dust was mostly…
The thermal and chemical phases of the cool component of interstellar gas are discussed. Variations with galactocentric radius and from galaxy to galaxy are mostly the result of changes in the ambient interstellar pressure and radiation…
The Interstellar Medium (ISM) comprises gases at different temperatures and densities, including ionized, atomic, molecular species, and dust particles. The neutral ISM is dominated by neutral hydrogen and has ionization fractions up to 8%.…
The bulk of cosmic matter resides in a dilute reservoir that fills the space between galaxies, the intergalactic medium (IGM). The history of this reservoir is intimately tied to the cosmic histories of structure formation, star formation,…
A broad array of interstellar absorption features that appear in the ultraviolet spectra of bright sources allows us to measure the abundances and ionization states of many important heavy elements that exist as free atoms in the…
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…
The gases of the interstellar medium (ISM) possess orders of magnitude more mass than those of all the stars combined and are thus the prime component of the baryonic universe. With L-band surface sensitivity even better than the planned…
The past century of interstellar dust has brought us from first ignoring it to finding that it is an important component of the interstellar medium and plays an important role in the evolution of galaxies, the formation of stars and…
Electrons densities in different locations of our galaxy are obtained in pulsar astronomy by dividing the dispersion measure (DM) by the distance of the pulsar to Earth. The properties of the interstellar plasma are related to its heating.…
Recent studies have shown that the local environment of the Sun is a complex one with the presence of several supernova shock bubbles and interstellar clouds. Even within this environment, the Sun is moving with a velocity of about 15 km/s…