Related papers: Measuring the Interplanetary Medium with a Solar S…
Ariel, the Atmospheric Remote-sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey, was adopted as the fourth medium-class mission in ESA's Cosmic Vision programme to be launched in 2029. During its 4-year mission, Ariel will study what exoplanets are…
With the recent discoveries of interstellar objects `Oumuamua and Borisov traversing the solar system, understanding the dynamics of interstellar objects is more pressing than ever. These detections have highlighted the possibility that…
In the early 1990s, contemporary interstellar dust (ISD) penetrating deep into the heliosphere was identified with the in-situ dust detector on board the Ulysses spacecraft. Between 1992 and the end of 2007 Ulysses monitored the ISD stream.…
We know that it is the front of the bow shock where the solar wind kinetic energy flux is transformed into the other kinds the most intensively. In our previous studies, we obtained important relationships that enable calculating the key…
Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are large-scale ejections of plasma and magnetic field from the solar corona, which propagate through interplanetary space at velocities of $\sim$100--2500~km~s$^{-1}$. Although plane-of-sky coronagraph…
A charged tether or wire experiences Coulomb drag when inserted into flowing plasma. In the solar wind the Coulomb drag can be utilised as efficient propellantless interplanetary propulsion as the electric solar wind sail (electric sail,…
We consider how the trajectory of an interstellar precursor mission would be affected by the gravity of the Sun in Newtonian and Milgromian dynamics (MOND). The Solar gravity is ${\approx 50\%}$ stronger in MOND beyond a distance of…
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…
Lightsails are a highly promising spacecraft concept that has attracted interest in recent years due to its potential to travel at near-relativistic speeds. Such speeds, which current conventional crafts cannot reach, offer tantalizing…
Observations have suggested substantial departures from pressure equilibrium in the interstellar medium (ISM) in the plane of the Galaxy, even on scales under 50 pc. Nevertheless, multi-phase models of the ISM assume at least locally…
Solar sail technology is ready to be deployed in a satellite mission carrying a science-grade magnetometer. In preparation for such a mission, it is essential to characterize the interactions between the sail and the ambient plasma that…
The correlation between the plasma density measured in space and the surface potential of an electrically conducting satellite body with biased electric field detectors has been recognized and used to provide density proxies. However, for…
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…
`Oumuamua, the first detected interstellar visitor to the solar system, exhibits non-gravitational acceleration in its trajectory. Ruling out other means of propulsion, such as the evaporation of material via a cometary tail, it has been…
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…
Interstellar objects (ISOs) are small bodies that can travel through our solar system from other star systems. When present in our solar system, they represent an opportunity to study the properties and origins of these objects, as well as…
We report a new diagnostic between two different states of the local interstellar medium (LISM) near our solar system using a sensitivity study constrained by several distinct and complementary observations of the LISM, solar wind, and…
The light from a source at a distance d will arrive at detectors separated by 100 AU at times that differ by as much as 120 (d/100 Mpc)^{-1} nanoseconds because of the curvature of the wavefront. At gigahertz frequencies, the arrival time…
The radio frequency 1.4 GHz transition of the atomic hydrogen is one of the important tracers of the diffuse neutral interstellar medium. Radio astronomical observations of this transition, using either a single dish telescope or an array…
Plasma velocity and magnetic field measurements from the Voyager 2 mission are used to study solar wind turbulence in the slow solar wind at two different heliocentric distances, 5 and 29 astronomical units, sufficiently far apart to…