Physics Of The Jovian Magnetosphere

A valuable reference work for those doing research in magnetospheric physics and related disciplines.

The Symposium 'The Magnetospheres of the Earth and Jupiter' (May 28th-June 1st, 1974 in Frascati) was organized by the 'Laboratorio Plasma Spazio' of the CNR, on the occasion of its moving to the Frascati area. The main theoretical topic was to be covered by N. Brice, but he died on January 31st, in a plane crash at Pago Pago (Samoa). It seemed appropriate to all of us to honor Neil Brice by renaming the meeting: 'Neil Brice Memorial Symposium'. The Symposium covered problems of magnetospheric dynamics, of both the Earth and Jupiter, with emphasis on the comparison between the two objects. The collaboration of American scientists participating in the recent NASA plan etary missions has made it possible to have new important scientific results presented to and discussed by the scientific community. Of the many people who helped to make the meeting such a success, very special thanks goes to Prof. C. Kennel ofU.C.L.A. whose contribution to the organization of this symposium has been extremely important.

This book contains the proceedings of the 1989 Crafoord Symposium organized by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The scientific field for the Crafoord Prize of 1989 was decided in 1988 by the Academy to be Magnetospheric Physics. On September 27,1989 the Academy awarded the 1989 Crafoord Prize to Professor J. A. Van Allen, Iowa City, USA "for his pioneer work in space research, in particular for the discovery of the high energy charged particles that are trapped in the Earth's magnetic field and form the radiation belts -often called the Van Allen belts - around the Earth". The subject for the Crafoord Symposium, which was held on September 28-29 at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, was Magnetospheric Physics, Achievements and Prospects. Some seventy of the world's leading scientists in magnetospheric physics (see list of participants) were invited to the Symposium. The program contained only invited papers. After the ?resentation of the Crafoord Prize Laureate, Prof. J . A. Van Allen, and his specially invited lecture: "Active Experiments in Magnetospheric Physics" follows in these proceedings two papers on the achievements of magnetospheric research hitherto. The main part of the proceedings (8 papers) deal with the main theme of the Symposium: How we shall carry on magnetospheric research in the future. The Symposium was organized by five members of the Academy representing the field of space physics: Lars Block (Stockholm), Rolf Bostrom (Uppsala), Kerstin Fredga (Stockholm), Carl-Gunne Fiilthammar (Stockholm) and Bengt Hultqvist (Kiruna, Chairman).

Early in 1958, instruments on the space satellites Explorer I and Explorer III revealed the presence of radiation belts, enormous populations of energetic particles trapped in the magnetic field of the earth. Originally published in 1983 but long out of print until now, Origins of Magnetospheric Physics tells the story of this dramatic and hugely transformative period in scientific and Cold War history. Writing in an accessible style and drawing on personal journals, correspondence, published papers, and the recollections of colleagues, James Van Allen documents a trail-blazing era in space history

The discovery of the earth's radiation belts in 1957 marked the beginning of what is now known as magnetospheric physics. The field has evolved normally from an early discovery phase through a period of exploration and into an era of quantitative studies of the dynamics of magnetized plasmas as they occur in nature. Such environments are common throughout the universe and have been studied in varying detail at the sun, the planets, pulsars, and certain radio galaxies. The purpose of this book is to describe basic quantitative aspects of magnetospheric physics. We use selected examples from the earth's magnetosphere to show how theory and data together form a quantitative framework for magnetospheric research. We have tried to organize the material along the philosophy of starting simply and adding com plexity only as necessary. We have avoided controversial and relatively new research topics and have tried to use as examples physical processes generally accepted as important within the earth's magnetospheric system. However, even in some of our examples, the question of whether the physical process applied to a particular problem is the dominant process, has yet to be answered.

In September 1984 a Summer School on Solar System Plasmas was held at Imperial College with the support of the Science and Engineering Research Council. An excellent group of lecturers was assembled to give a series of basic talks on the various aspects of the subject, aimed at Ph. D. students or researchers from related areas wanting to learn about the plasma physics of the solar system. The students were so appreciative of the lectures that it was decided to write them up as the present book. Traditionally, different areas of solar system science, such as solar and magnetospheric physics, have been studied by separate communities with little contact. However, it has become clear that many common themes cut right across these distinct topics, such as magnetohydrodynamic instabilities and waves, magnetic reconnect ion , convection, dynamo activity and particle acceleration. The plasma parameters may well be quite different in the Sun's atmosphere, a cometary tailor Jupiter's magnetosphere, but many of the basic processes are similar and it is by studying them in different environments that we come to understand them more deeply. Furthermore, direct in situ measurements of plasma properties at one point in the solar wind or the magnetosphere complement the more global view by remote sensing of a similar phenomenon at the Sun.