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Plasma environments in the solar system

Project: Research

Description

This consolidated grant supports a programme of STFC-funded research into the physics of various plasma environments within our solar system. The programme is thus divided into three distinct projects, the aims of which are as follows:
- to determine the extent to which internal magnetospheric processes disrupt the solar wind control of large- scale magnetospheric dynamics and ensuing space weather, by considering phenomena that decouple the solar wind- magnetosphere-ionosphere system.
- to exploit data from Mars- and Saturn-orbiting spacecraft to study magnetic flux ropes, a phenomenon linked to the loss of planetary atmospheres from unmagnetised bodies, to understand their role in solar-planetary coupling.
- to identify how energy from the Sun affects Saturn, through the study of Saturn's auroral emissions observed by Cassini and the Hubble Space Telescope under the extremes of solar cycle activity.
StatusFinished
Effective start/end date1/04/15 → 31/08/18

Funding

  • STFC: £1,399,672.00

Datasets

Activities

Research outputs