Future Exploration of the Outer Heliosphere and Very Local Interstellar Medium by Interstellar Probe

There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Abstract

A detailed overview of the knowledge gaps in our understanding of the heliospheric interaction with the largely unexplored Very Local Interstellar Medium (VLISM) are provided along with predictions of with the scientific discoveries that await. The new measurements required to make progress in this expanding frontier of space physics are discussed and include in-situ plasma and pick-up ion measurements throughout the heliosheath, direct sampling of the VLISM properties such as elemental and isotopic composition, densities, flows, and temperatures of neutral gas, dust and plasma, and remote energetic neutral atom (ENA) and Lyman-alpha (LYA) imaging from vantage points that can uniquely discern the heliospheric shape and bring new information on the interaction with interstellar hydrogen. The implementation of a pragmatic Interstellar Probe mission with a nominal design life to reach 375 Astronomical Units (au) with likely operation out to 550 au are reported as a result of a 4-year NASA funded mission study.

Related collections

Most cited references 354

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Trends, rhythms, and aberrations in global climate 65 Ma to present.

J Zachos, M. Pagani, L. Sloan … (2001)

Since 65 million years ago (Ma), Earth's climate has undergone a significant and complex evolution, the finer details of which are now coming to light through investigations of deep-sea sediment cores. This evolution includes gradual trends of warming and cooling driven by tectonic processes on time scales of 10(5) to 10(7) years, rhythmic or periodic cycles driven by orbital processes with 10(4)- to 10(6)-year cyclicity, and rare rapid aberrant shifts and extreme climate transients with durations of 10(3) to 10(5) years. Here, recent progress in defining the evolution of global climate over the Cenozoic Era is reviewed. We focus primarily on the periodic and anomalous components of variability over the early portion of this era, as constrained by the latest generation of deep-sea isotope records. We also consider how this improved perspective has led to the recognition of previously unforeseen mechanisms for altering climate.

0 comments Cited 2724 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: not found
Article: not found

A survey of low-energy electrons in the evening sector of the magnetosphere with OGO 1 and OGO 3

Vytenis Vasyliunas (1968)

0 comments Cited 608 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Electron acceleration from contracting magnetic islands during reconnection.

J. Drake, M. Swisdak, H. Che … (2006)

A long-standing problem in the study of space and astrophysical plasmas is to explain the production of energetic electrons as magnetic fields 'reconnect' and release energy. In the Earth's magnetosphere, electron energies reach hundreds of thousands of electron volts (refs 1-3), whereas the typical electron energies associated with large-scale reconnection-driven flows are just a few electron volts. Recent observations further suggest that these energetic particles are produced in the region where the magnetic field reconnects. In solar flares, upwards of 50 per cent of the energy released can appear as energetic electrons. Here we show that electrons gain kinetic energy by reflecting from the ends of the contracting 'magnetic islands' that form as reconnection proceeds. The mechanism is analogous to the increase of energy of a ball reflecting between two converging walls--the ball gains energy with each bounce. The repetitive interaction of electrons with many islands allows large numbers to be efficiently accelerated to high energy. The back pressure of the energetic electrons throttles reconnection so that the electron energy gain is a large fraction of the released magnetic energy. The resultant energy spectra of electrons take the form of power laws with spectral indices that match the magnetospheric observations.

0 comments Cited 448 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

All references

Author and article information

Contributors

P. C. Brandt:

ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4644-0306

pontus.brandt@jhuapl.edu

A. Galli: andre.galli@space.unibe.ch

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Space Sci Rev

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Space Sci Rev

Title: Space Science Reviews

Publisher: Springer Netherlands (Dordrecht )

ISSN (Print): 0038-6308

ISSN (Electronic): 1572-9672

Publication date (Electronic): 28 February 2023

Publication date PMC-release: 28 February 2023

Publication date (Print): 2023

Volume: 219

Issue: 2

Electronic Location Identifier: 18

Affiliations

[1 ]GRID grid.474430.0, ISNI 0000 0004 0630 1170, The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, ; Laurel, MD USA

[2 ]GRID grid.47840.3f, ISNI 0000 0001 2181 7878, University of California Berkeley, ; Berkeley, CA USA

[3 ]GRID grid.417593.d, ISNI 0000 0001 2358 8802, Office of Space Research and Technology, , Academy of Athens, ; Athens, 10679 Greece

[4 ]GRID grid.201894.6, ISNI 0000 0001 0321 4125, Southwest Research Institute, ; San Antonio, TX USA

[5 ]GRID grid.266190.a, ISNI 0000000096214564, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, , University of Colorado at Boulder, ; Boulder, CO USA

[6 ]GRID grid.35403.31, ISNI 0000 0004 1936 9991, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, ; Urbana, IL USA

[7 ]GRID grid.5734.5, ISNI 0000 0001 0726 5157, University of Bern, ; Bern, Switzerland

[8 ]GRID grid.7445.2, ISNI 0000 0001 2113 8111, Imperial College London, ; London, UK

[9 ]GRID grid.5801.c, ISNI 0000 0001 2156 2780, ETH, ; Zurich, Switzerland

[10 ]GRID grid.214572.7, ISNI 0000 0004 1936 8294, University of Iowa, ; Iowa City, IA USA

[11 ]GRID grid.266190.a, ISNI 0000000096214564, University of Colorado Boulder, ; Boulder, CO USA

[12 ]GRID grid.4299.6, ISNI 0000 0001 2169 3852, Space Research Institute, , Austrian Academy of Sciences, ; Graz, Austria

[13 ]GRID grid.167436.1, ISNI 0000 0001 2192 7145, University of New Hampshire, ; Durham, NH USA

[14 ]GRID grid.189504.1, ISNI 0000 0004 1936 7558, Boston University, ; Boston, MA USA

[15 ]GRID grid.6738.a, ISNI 0000 0001 1090 0254, Technical University Braunschweig, ; Braunschweig, Germany

[16 ]Weslayan University, Middeltown, CT USA

[17 ]GRID grid.16750.35, ISNI 0000 0001 2097 5006, Princeton University, ; Princeton, NJ USA

[18 ]GRID grid.9764.c, ISNI 0000 0001 2153 9986, University of Kiel, ; Kiel, Germany

[19 ]GRID grid.423138.f, ISNI 0000 0004 0637 3991, Planetary Science Institute, ; Tucson, AZ USA

Author information

P. C. Brandt http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4644-0306

Article

Publisher ID: 943

DOI: 10.1007/s11214-022-00943-x

PMC ID: 9974711

SO-VID: f317967c-df94-47ee-8d33-f99b8ad42d89

License:

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

History

Date received : 20 May 2022

Date accepted : 7 December 2022

Funding

Funded by: FundRef http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100017437, NASA Headquarters;

Award ID: NNN06AA01C

Award Recipient : P. C. Brandt

Funded by: FundRef http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100018624, Universities Space Research Association;

Funded by: FundRef http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100000104, National Aeronautics and Space Administration;

Award ID: NAS5 97271

Award ID: NNX07AJ69G

Award ID: NNN06AA01C

Award ID: 80NSSC20K0719

Award ID: 80GSFC19C0027

Award Recipient : K. Dialynas E. J. Zirnstein

Funded by: University of Bern

Open Access :

Open access funding provided by University of Bern

Custom metadata

Keywords: outer heliosphere,interstellar medium,interstellar probe

Data availability:

Keywords: outer heliosphere, interstellar medium, interstellar probe

Comments

Comment on this article

scite_

Smart Citations

Citing PublicationsSupportingMentioningContrasting

View Citations

See how this article has been cited at scite.ai

scite shows how a scientific paper has been cited by providing the context of the citation, a classification describing whether it supports, mentions, or contrasts the cited claim, and a label indicating in which section the citation was made.

Cited by 2

See all cited by

Most referenced authors 4,049

See all reference authors

Future Exploration of the Outer Heliosphere and Very Local Interstellar Medium by Interstellar Probe

Read this article at

Abstract

Related collections

A Sustainable Future

Most cited references 354

Trends, rhythms, and aberrations in global climate 65 Ma to present.

A survey of low-energy electrons in the evening sector of the magnetosphere with OGO 1 and OGO 3

Electron acceleration from contracting magnetic islands during reconnection.

Author and article information

Contributors

Journal

Affiliations

Author information

Article

History

Funding

Categories

Custom metadata

Comments

Comment on this article

Similar content 373

Cited by 2

Most referenced authors 4,049