The Next Decade of Discovery in Solar and Space Physics Exploring and Safeguarding Humanity's Home in Space (2025) / Chapter Skim
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1 Solar and Space Physics
Pages 17-36

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From page 17...
... was explored and this exploration was extended to what became known as the low Earth orbit environment, and then to Earth's radiation belts and magnetosphere. This followed investigations from the 19th century applying the ideas of electromagnetism to Earth's magnetic field, giving rise to the science of geomagnetism and its extensions into the upper atmosphere, and to the aurora, thereby laying the foundations for magnetospheric physics, the study of the solar wind and its interaction with Earth, and the subsequent development of space plasma physics.
From page 18...
... Solar Orbiter mission revealed an extremely turbulent atmosphere, with fluctuations caused by the release of magnetic energy on small scales through a "magnetic reconnection" process. In the next decade, these observations position solar and space physics to answer the 70-year-old questions of how the solar corona is heated and how the solar wind is accelerated, as well as stimulate theoretical explanations and models for the role of turbulence in the heating and acceleration processes.
From page 19...
... mission exploring the plasma physics of explosive magnetic reconnection; Van Allen Probes discovery of a third Van Allen radiation belt and Juno spacecraft first exploration of Jupiter's polar region; GOLD (Global-Scale Observations of the Limb and Disk) discovery of upper atmosphere plasma bubbles; and New Horizons revealing how the outer heliosphere is shaped by pickup ions of interstellar origin.
From page 20...
... MMS observations have spurred major efforts to reconcile theory and observations by incorporating the very detailed physical processes of electrons and ions in large-scale simulations, which will motivate new theories for particle energization and acceleration via reconnection- and turbulence-related mechanisms well into the next decade. 1.1.4 An Unexpected Twist on the First Discovery of the Space Age With the launch of the NASA Van Allen Probes twin spacecraft mission into the radiation belts in late 2012, the expectation was that the mission would probe the dynamics of the two rings of high-energy particles circling Earth originally discovered by James Van Allen and the first U.S.
From page 21...
... The third belt persisted for 4 weeks before a powerful interplanetary shock wave from the Sun annihilated it, returning the Van Allen belts to their standard two-belt configuration. Besides profoundly affecting Earth's radiation belts, space storms can dump large numbers of radiation belt particles into Earth's upper atmosphere, thereby depleting the belts and destroying atmospheric ozone.
From page 22...
... NASA's Van Allen Probes mission was designed to study changes in the radiation belts and the physical processes that drive those changes, particularly those that originate from the dynamical solar wind and its impact on Earth's magnetic field.
From page 23...
... 1.1.7 Humanity Becomes a Galactic-Faring Civilization This past decade witnessed humanity become a galactic-faring civilization. At a distance 120 times greater than that from the Sun to Earth and after 40 year's journey, Voyager 1 and 2 exited the bubble created by the Sun -- the heliosphere -- to enter interstellar space and give humanity the first glimpse of interstellar plasma, magnetic fields, and unmodulated (i.e., unaffected by the heliosphere)
From page 24...
... This coordination has accelerated the understanding of the complexity of the coupled heliospheric–interstellar medium system, its underlying dominant physical processes, such as charge exchange, and the complex coupling of heliosphere to the local interstellar medium and vice versa in a way that could not have been anticipated a decade ago. 1.1.8 Heritage from the Dawn of Humanity: First Light from the Inouye Solar Telescope Solar observatories date to the dawn of agriculture when humanity's earliest farmers began charting the seasons.
From page 25...
... . Moreover, the state-ofthe-art magnetic field measurements of the Sun's chromosphere and corona provided by Inouye will revolutionize our understanding of small-scale magnetic activity, plasma jets at the solar surface, the triggering of solar flares and eruptions, and long-term solar cycle variations of these small-scale structures.
From page 26...
... Inouye Solar Telescope, the world's largest and most powerful solar telescope, is now commissioned and beginning to return scientific data of unprecedented resolution and fidelity. (Right)
From page 27...
... This conclusion applies to physics-based models across the entire field of solar and space physics. 1.2 SPACE WEATHER IN THE SERVICE OF HUMANITY 1.2.1 Space Weather Impacts Us All The past decade marks a period when developed societies became truly space faring, as humanity depends increasingly on space-based communication, positioning, and navigation assets and applications, and as astronauts and commercial space travelers venture deeper into space.
From page 28...
... Space weather has become the applied branch of solar and space physics that addresses the adverse impacts of the Sun, its expanding atmosphere, and magnetic field on life and technologies at Earth, its atmosphere, space environment, and more generally everywhere in the solar system. Because the Sun is the primary origin of space weather, it behooves humanity to understand this star as it increasingly affects every aspect of technological society and lives.
From page 29...
... Space weather continually degrades space systems and causes errors in navigation, positioning, and communication systems. Severe space storms can debilitate entire power grids, generate hazardous radiation that harms aircraft and space-based crew, increase the risk of collision by nudging spacecraft and scrambling space debris orbits, and cause satellite subsystems to malfunction.
From page 30...
... , NASA, NSF, and other agencies. Initially space weather was the purview primarily of NOAA, augmenting its terrestrial weather capabilities and expertise, with NASA engagement beyond scientific research occurring on an ad hoc basis driven mainly by recommendations in the 2013 decadal survey, Solar and Space Physics: A Science for a Technological Society (NRC 2013; hereafter the "2013 decadal survey")
From page 31...
... 1.2.4 Modeling the Space Weather System Space weather prediction has taken giant leaps forward in the past decade. The upcoming decade promises extraordinary progress as the scientific and operational observation network grows and the numerical simulation, data assimilation and data science techniques, artificial intelligence methods, and the computational capacity continue to increase.
From page 32...
... Both the Space Weather Modeling Framework Geospace and the Ovation Prime models are driven by solar wind observations and are operationally used at the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center.
From page 33...
... for this survey is broader than those of the previous two decadal surveys in solar and space physics. Notably, in addition to identifying priority science, the task included the following: assessing the space weather pipeline, from basic research to applications to operations, and identifying new and emerging frontiers where solar and space physics expertise enables significant advances.
From page 34...
... FIGURE 1-15 Solar and space physics vision and mission for the next decade and beyond. SOURCE: Composed by AJ Galaviz III, Southwest Research Institute.
From page 35...
... The flow-down from the science and space weather themes is shown in Figure 1-17. Because science and space weather goals are not accomplished without a vibrant and engaged solar and space physics community, this evolving workforce and the challenges for the next decade are discussed in Chapter 4.
From page 36...
... 2013. "A Long-Lived Relativistic Electron Storage Ring Embedded in Earth's Outer Van Allen Belt." Science 340(6129)


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