The space between the planets is far from empty. It contains: electromagnetic radiation (photons); hot plasma (electrons, protons and other ions) a.k.a. the solar wind ; cosmic rays; microscopic dust particles; and magnetic fields (primarily the Sun's). While the Sun 's radiation is obvious, the other components of the interplanetary medium were not discovered until very recently. ... Except near some of the planets, interplanetary space is filled with the Sun's magnetic field. ... Sun .. ...

... Perhaps the most interesting satellites in this group are the ones sent into distant orbits, some of them extending well past the Moon--e.g. the WIND spacecraft pictured here. Among them is a long series of IMP s (Interplanetary Monitoring Platforms) which sampled the Earth's distant magnetic environment, the magnetosphere, and the surrounding interplanetary region; IMP-8 is still returning good data, more than 20 years after its launch. ...

... Aurora from Space . ... Magnetic Storms . ... Solar fast Particles . ... Currently more than 200 communication satellites circle the Earth in synchronous orbit . ... Another effect of magnetic storms (and to lesser extent, of substorms) is a greater intensity of the electric currents circulating between Earth and distant space. ... One spacecraft would orbit near Earth, the other would be stationed elsewhere in the Earth's orbit around the Sun, capturing a sideways view of solar eruptions. ...

Russian SHAREABLE DATA CENTER Institute of Solar-Terrestial Physics SB RAS . ... One of the rarest but most interesting effects which can be observed with the Irkutsk IS radar is anomal high power signal registraion(coherent echo) due to strong magnetic storms. ... These signals are formed at E-layer heights in the presence of a strong electric field which causes particles to drift. ...

Next: Polarization efficiency: size/shape/orientation effects Up: Optical properties of cosmic Previous: The 2175? feature . To model the interstellar polarization one needs to calculate the forward-transmitted radiation for an ensemble of non-spherical aligned dust grains. ... Let non-polarized stellar radiation passes through a dusty cloud with a homogeneous magnetic field. ... The angle between the line of sight and the magnetic field is ( ). ... where the angle is connected with and ( ). ...

... Research objects and scientific purposes . Space scientific program includes development and launch of two supersmall spacecrafts "Universitetskiy" and "Kompas-2" intended for monitoring of radiation conditions near the Earth. ... All the studies conducted in the near-Earth space are characterised by strong radiation fields. ... The circular polar orbits, which cover all the near-Earth space, are the most favorable for comprehensive studies of the radiation conditions near the Earth. ...

SPACE WEATHER . The response of our space environment to the constantly changing Sun is known as space weather. ... Some of the most dramatic space weather effects occur in association with eruptions of material from the solar atmosphere into interplanetary space. ... Space weather disturbances are generally caused by solar storms. ... the Sun. ... Every object in the solar system experiences the equivalent of Earth's space weather, although its detailed characteristics differ from place to place. ...

Galileo Finds Giant Iron Core in Jupiter's Moon Io . Jupiter's volcano-pocked moon Io has been found by NASA's Galileo spacecraft to have a giant iron core that takes up half its diameter, scientists report in today's issue of Science magazine. The spacecraft also has detected a large "hole" in Jupiter's magnetic field near Io, leading to speculation about whether Io possesses its own magnetic field. If so, it would be the first planetary moon known to have one. ... Space History Galileo . ...

... Solar Storm Causes X-Ray Aurora . ... 18.04.1997 . ... Credit: POLAR , PIXIE , NASA Explanation: On April 7 , the SOHO spacecraft spotted a Solar Storm ejecting a cloud of energetic particles toward planet Earth. ... In this image from April 11 , the Polar Ionospheric X-ray Imaging Experiment (PIXIE) onboard NASA's orbiting POLAR spacecraft records the strongest X-ray aurora seen in more than a year of operation. ... April . ... April 1997 . ... Publications with keywords: storm - X-ray . ...

Abstract . A first-generation CMOS Charged Particle Spectrometer chip [1] was designed at JPL for flight on the STRV-2 spacecraft. These devices will collect electron and proton spectra in low Earth orbit as part of an experiment to demonstrate Active Pixel Sensor (APS) technology in space. This paper presents the results of total dose testing on these chips and, where possible, attempts to extend the results to other Active Pixel Sensors. ...

So the evidence for Dark Matter is fairly overwhelming. ... Theory: if the Universe is closed then all the luminous matter seen in galaxies contributes only 0.5% of the mass required to eventually halt the expansion . ... This means that galaxies are surrounded by dark matter halos which trapped baryonic gas (e.g. hydrogen) and turned it into stars. ... WIMPS - weakly interacting massive particles created in the extremely early universe . ... Theory 99% of the Universe is Dark Matter . ...

... It should be recalled that most (99.99 percent) of the energy is dissipated by single radiopulsars in the form of relativistic particles and low-frequency electromagnetic waves which are not observable. ... This gives rise to an interesting analog of the classical reflection or heating effect (Lipunov, 1980[ 97 ]; Lipunov and Prokhorov, 1984[ 110 ]; Harding, 1991[ 64 ]; Lipunov and Nazin, 1994[ 119 ]). ... For close binary systems, -0.3 and the transformation coefficient may be several percent. ...

... In addition, IZMIRAN comprises the St.Petersburg branch and magnetic ionospheric observatory in Kaliningrad. The history of IZMIRAN is largely that of investigating magnetic storms and sub-storms on the Earth surface, in circum-terrestrial and interplanetary space, initially by means of a network of ground stations of the Soviet Union (1930s - 1940s) and the nonmagnetic skunner "Zarja", then through the extensive use of magnetic measurements on artificial Earth satellites and automatic stations. ...

... These trajectories have an initial flight from the Earth to a large distance (of about 1.5 million km), the following passive flight to the Moon's orbit, an approach to the Moon with a decrease of an energy of a particle (spacecraft) selenocentric motion to a negative value and the temporary capture in an elliptic orbit of the Moon's satellite. ... Several trajectories of this type are determined. ... Ivashkin V. V. On optimal trajectories of space flight to the Moon in the Earth--Moon--Sun system. ...

... In brief: the frequency-dependent radiative transfer equation is solved for a dust under assumption of spherically-symmetric geometry for its distribution taking into account particle size distribution and quantum heating effects for the very small dust particles. ... Table: Model parameters for IRAS04296+3429. ... parameter . ... hot dust shell) . ... The best fit to the spectral energy distribution of IRAS04296 is shown by heavy solid line (see Table2 for details concerning parameters of the model...

... SSAU scientists, specialists and students were engaged in creation of new scientific equipment for the new satellite for about two years. ... It will participate in the first launch campaign from the space-launch complex Vostochniy. ... The first launch from Vostochniy will perform the Samara carrier rocket Soyuz-2.1a , which will orbit another device created by SSAU scientists and students - nanosatellite SamSat-218 , as well as the university spacecraft Mikhail Lomonosov (Moscow State University)....

... Tonight's Sky . ... Observing . ... Astronomy for Kids . ... Observing springtime deep-sky objects with a large telescope . ... Do the magnetic fields of the planets affect spacecraft during flybys? ... Yes, a spacecraft that has a net charge will feel an effect due to the Lorentz force while moving through a planet s magnetic field. ... Get instant access to subscriber content on Astronomy.com! ... Receive news, sky-event information, observing tips, and more from Astronomy's weekly email...

Next: Error Determination Up: *qpspec* - Extraction of Previous: Spectral Extraction of Extended . Charged particles can be removed from the source and background spectra using the master veto (MV) rate. ... For example, if MV rate = 100, the following command will remove the charged particles in the background and source spectra before determining the net spectrum. xs > qpspec vign_corr=yes avg_mvr=100 . ...

... Acceleration of particles in the vicinity of a massive black hole We propose a two-step mechanism for charged particle acceleration in the magnetosphere of a massive black hole surrounded by an accretion disk. Particles first gain energy by stochastic process during the accretion phase. It is shown that effective proton acceleration up to energies eV is possible in the turbulent magnetized accretion disk. ...

... The change in temperature as the spacecraft crossed the terminator caused the secondary mirror support structure to expand and contract which moved the secondary mirror and changed telescope focus. This effect was termed thermal breathing and occurred on timescales equal to the orbital period of the spacecraft. The pre-COSTAR photometric error associated with thermal breathing could up to 4-7% and affected the flux in a random and uncorrectable way. ...