News

Publication: Predictions for New Horizons' SWAP Measurements Downstream of the Heliospheric Termination Shock
July 2, 2025

Currently ∼62 au from the Sun, the New Horizons spacecraft is en route to the outer heliosphere boundaries. The first boundary it will encounter is the heliospheric termination shock (HTS), where the solar wind ion (SWI) and interstellar pickup ion (PUI) plasma mixture is slowed down to subsonic speeds, compressed, and heated. Some particles,…

Meeting: Dusty Visions 2025 Held in Princeton
June 19, 2025

Dusty Visions, an international workshop on cosmic dust was held from June 16-18, 2025 at Peyton Hall in Princeton University. In a workshop style, we discussed the present state and new venues in cosmic dust research. Major topics of the workshop included the following.

Zodiacal dust complex (IDPs)Asteroidal & cometary dust…
Publication: Formation of H+ PUI Tails Downstream of Distant Interplanetary Shocks
June 19, 2025

New Horizons' Solar Wind Around Pluto (SWAP) instrument has observed interplanetary shocks from ∼20 to 60 au from the Sun. Different studies have analyzed the effects of these shocks on the solar wind ion (SWI) and interstellar pickup ion (PUI) distributions. A key finding includes the observation of PUI tails downstream of some shocks. However…

Seminar: 2025 June 5, Prof. Joachim Saur. Subsurface Oceans within the Moons of the Outer Solar System
May 29, 2025

Liquid water is one of the few preconditions for life as we know it. Therefore, the search and characterization of liquid water outside of Earth plays an essential role in planetary sciences. Prominent candidates for liquid water are Jupiter's moons Europa and Ganymede and Saturn's moons Enceladus and Titan, which are expected to host oceans…

Seminar: 2025 June 4, Prof. Dionissios T. Hristopulos. Adventures in Spatiotemporal Data Modeling
May 29, 2025

This presentation will explore methodologies for gap filling and forecasting in spatial and spatiotemporal datasets, following a biased random walk through machine learning space. I will assume that the data represent potentially noisy realizations of an underlying stochastic process evolving in space and/or time.

A central theme of this…

Seminar: 2025 June 2, Prof. Tom Stallard. JWST at the Giant Planets
May 29, 2025

The Giant Planets are home to a titanic battle between two vast systems, the dense and powerful atmospheres and the wide-ranging surrounding magnetospheres, inflated by volcanic moons and extending deep into the surrounding solar wind. Each system is powered by complex interactions of a wide array of scales, meeting in the delicate near-vacuum…

Publication: Viewing Global Changes in the Heliosheath with IMAP's Energetic Neutral Atom Imagers
May 25, 2025

We present a simulation analysis of NASA's upcoming Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) energetic neutral atom (ENA) instrument capabilities in viewing "global" changes in the heliosheath (HS) plasma, and the resulting ENA flux changes detected near Earth. This is done by simulating ENA emissions produced by charge exchange in a…

Sonification of PSP/ISʘIS First 23 Orbits
May 9, 2025

The Integrated Science Investigation of the Sun (ISʘIS) is a complete science investigation on the Parker Solar Probe (PSP) mission, which flies to within nine solar radii of the Sun’s surface. ISʘIS comprises a two-instrument suite to measure energetic particles over a very broad energy range, as well as coordinated management, science…

Publication: Diverse Dust Populations in the Near-Sun Environment Characterized by PSP/ISʘIS
May 8, 2025

The Integrated Science Investigation of the Sun energetic particle instrument suite on the Parker Solar Probe is dedicated to measuring energetic ions and electrons in the near-Sun environment. It includes a half-sky-viewing time-of-flight mass spectrometer (EPI-Lo) and five high-energy silicon solid-state detector-telescopes (EPI-Hi). To 2024…

Publication: Transfer of Entropy between the Magnetic Field and Solar Energetic Particles during an Interplanetary Coronal Mass Ejections
May 6, 2025

The thermodynamics of solar wind bulk plasma have been routinely measured and quantified, unlike those of solar energetic particles (SEPs), whose thermodynamic properties have remained elusive until recently. The thermodynamic kappa (κEP) that parameterizes the statistical distribution of SEP kinetic energy contains information…

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