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Astrophysics: Space Plasma Physics
Faculty in this area of research:
Experimental
and theoretical research in the astrophysics division also encompasses
space and laboratory plasma physics. In situ measurements of space
plasmas -- governed by the same laws as the confined plasmas now
studied intensively in laboratories -- afford opportunities to study
directly the behavior of plasmas under widely varying conditions.
The MIT Space
Plasma Group has developed plasma detectors for many Earth-orbiting
(e.g., IMP-8) and deep-space probes. Results from these instruments
have delineated the structure of the solar wind throughout the solar
cycle, and have elucidated the complex interactions of the solar
wind with the planets and with Halley's comet. MIT measurements
internal to the six known magnetospheres in the solar system (Mercury,
Earth, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) have provided a wealth
of information about the plasmas in planetary magnetospheres, their
sources, transport, and energization. Information about the distant
solar wind is continually being returned by the MIT
plasma detector on board Voyager 2, which is now well beyond
the orbit of Pluto. In addition to continuing data analysis, the
group is currently involved in developing instrumentation for the
WIND spacecraft,
a part of NASA's Global Geospace Science program.
In the
area of the theory of space plasmas, MIT has the Center for Theoretical
Geo/Cosmo Plasma Physics, sponsored primarily by NASA and the Air
Force Office of Scientific Research. Currently, a substantial program
exists in the study of weak and strong plasma turbulence, stochasticity
and chaos, wave generation and propagation, plasma instabilities,
and particle energization processes in the space environment. These
studies apply the basic kinetic theory of charged particles in magnetized
space environments to the various micro-, meso-, and macro-scale
phenomena commonly observed in the solar wind, planetary magnetospheres
and ionospheres, and other regimes.
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