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Solar and Space Physics: A Science for a Technological Society
SOLAR AND SPACE PHYSICS: RECENT DISCOVERIES, FUTURE FRONTIERS
57
measurements from the interstellar medium—a truly historic event. The coming decade will therefore
provide critical understanding of the heliospheric boundary regions and the processes that shape the
interaction of the heliosphere with its local galactic medium. This motivates a fourth science challenge:
SHP-4. Discover how the Sun interacts with the local interstellar medium.
Challenges Related to Solar Wind-Magnetosphere Interactions
While the broad view of how reconnection takes place and drives convection in the magnetosphere
is now well established, the underlying physics of magnetic reconnection in the collisionless regime of
the magnetosphere is not yet understood well enough to enable prediction of when, where, and how fast
this process will occur and how it contributes to mass, energy, and momentum transport. NASA’s MagneFIGURE 2.8 In this ultra-high-resolution numerical simulation of a reconnection-initiated CME and eruptive flare, the white
contours indicate high current densities. Note the vertical flare current sheet below the erupting plasmoid. The plasmoid
undergoes a sudden acceleration coincident with the onset of the flare (reconnection in this sheet). SOURCE: J.T. Karpen, S.K.
Antiochos, and C.R. DeVore, The mechanisms for the onset and explosive eruption of coronal mass ejections and eruptive
flares, Astrophysical Journal 760(1):81, 2012.
Figure 2-8 and 10-12
Solar and Space Physics: A Science for a Technological Society
SOLAR AND SPACE PHYSICS: RECENT DISCOVERIES, FUTURE FRONTIERS
57
measurements from the interstellar medium—a truly historic event. The coming decade will therefore
provide critical understanding of the heliospheric boundary regions and the processes that shape the
interaction of the heliosphere with its local galactic medium. This motivates a fourth science challenge:
SHP-4. Discover how the Sun interacts with the local interstellar medium.
Challenges Related to Solar Wind-Magnetosphere Interactions
While the broad view of how reconnection takes place and drives convection in the magnetosphere
is now well established, the underlying physics of magnetic reconnection in the collisionless regime of
the magnetosphere is not yet understood well enough to enable prediction of when, where, and how fast
this process will occur and how it contributes to mass, energy, and momentum transport. NASA’s MagneFIGURE 2.8 In this ultra-high-resolution numerical simulation of a reconnection-initiated CME and eruptive flare, the white
contours indicate high current densities. Note the vertical flare current sheet below the erupting plasmoid. The plasmoid
undergoes a sudden acceleration coincident with the onset of the flare (reconnection in this sheet). SOURCE: J.T. Karpen, S.K.
Antiochos, and C.R. DeVore, The mechanisms for the onset and explosive eruption of coronal mass ejections and eruptive
flares, Astrophysical Journal 760(1):81, 2012.
Figure 2-8 and 10-12