HR: 1340h
AN: SH14A-1687    [Abstracts]
TI: The Interstellar Heliopause Probe / Heliospheric Explorer: IHP/HEX
AU: * Wimmer-Schweingruber, R F
EM: wimmer@physik.uni-kiel.de
AF: Institute for Experimental and Applied Physics, Christian-Albrechts-University Kiel, Leibnizstr. 11, Kiel, 24098, Germany
AU: McNutt, R
EM: Ralph.McNutt@jhuapl.edu
AF: Applied Physics Laboratory, The Johns Hopkins University, 11100 Johns Hopkins Road, Laurel, MD 20723, United States
AU: Team, a I
EM: wimmer@physik.uni-kiel.de
AB: The Sun, driving a supersonic solar wind, cuts out of the local interstellar medium a giant plasma bubble, the heliosphere. Dedicated deep-space missions have greatly enhanced our understanding of our immediate neighborhood. Ulysses is the only spacecraft exploring the third, out-of-ecliptic dimension, while SOHO has allowed us to better understand the influence of the Sun and to image the glow of interstellar matter in the heliosphere. Voyager 1 has recently encountered the innermost boundary of this plasma bubble, the termination shock, and is returning exciting yet puzzling data of this remote region. The next logical step is to leave the heliosphere and to thereby map out in unprecedented detail the structure of the outer heliosphere and its boundaries, the termination shock, the heliosheath, the heliopause, and, after leaving the heliosphere, to discover the true nature of the hydrogen wall, the bow shock, and the local interstellar medium beyond. This will greatly advance our understanding of the heliosphere that is the best-known example for astrospheres as found around other stars. Thus, IHP/HEX will allow us to discover, explore, and understand fundamental astrophysical processes in the largest accessible plasma laboratory, the heliosphere. IHP addresses three core Science goals: H: How do solar wind and interstellar medium interact to form the heliosphere and how does this relate to the universal phenomenon of the formation of astrospheres? A: What are the properties of the very local interstellar medium and how do they relate to the typical ISM? F: How do plasma, neutral gas, dust, waves, particles, fields, and radiation interact in extremely rarefied and incompletely ionized plasmas?
DE: 2100 INTERPLANETARY PHYSICS
DE: 2124 Heliopause and solar wind termination
DE: 2126 Heliosphere/interstellar medium interactions
DE: 7800 SPACE PLASMA PHYSICS
DE: 7900 SPACE WEATHER
SC: SPA-Solar and Heliospheric Physics [SH]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting