Space and astrophysical plasma as a physical system refers to ionized gases permeating cosmic environments such as the interstellar and intergalactic medium, stellar winds, accretion disks, and magnetospheres. These plasmas are typically low-collisionality, often magnetized, and governed by collective electromagnetic interactions described by magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), kinetic theory, or hybrid models. Key properties include Debye shielding, anisotropic pressure, and nonthermal particle distributions, with dynamics dominated by magnetic reconnection, turbulence, waves, and instabilities. Space and astrophysical plasmas are central to energy and momentum transport, cosmic ray acceleration, and radiation processes across a vast range of spatial and temporal scales.
Stars like our sun are formed from the collapse of stellar objects called prestellar cores, cold and dense concentrations of gas and dust held together by gravity. While many questions remain about the exact mechanisms of ...
Astronomy
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For six and a half days in July 2024, the balloon-borne solar observatory Sunrise III kept its gaze fixed on the sun. The stratospheric flight, which stretched from the northernmost tip of Sweden to Canada's Northwest Territories, ...
Astronomy
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Where does the solar system end and interstellar space begin? That's a question scientists have been working to answer using spacecraft traveling beyond the sun's influence. A team of researchers from the Southwest Research ...
Astronomy
Jul 7, 2026
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A researcher at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), a part of The University of Alabama System, has published a new study in The Astrophysical Journal suggesting that tiny charged dust grains near the sun may significantly ...
Astronomy
Jul 1, 2026
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When a high-intensity laser interacts with plasma, the charged particles typically oscillate back and forth like waves on the ocean. But what if the laser itself could twist like a whirlpool? Researchers have now demonstrated ...
Optics & Photonics
Jun 29, 2026
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A new study has revealed an unexpected link between solar storms and the flux of high-energy cosmic rays arriving at Earth. The findings, made using one of the world's largest cosmic ray detectors, could open up a new way ...
A University of Iowa-led physics team has detailed the extreme expansion of a magnetic cloud that originated from a huge, gaseous explosion on the sun. In a new study, the researchers describe the inflated magnetic cloud ...
Astronomy
Jun 24, 2026
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Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) scientists are using a solar wind forecasting method combined with analytic and numerical heliosphere models to find out where the first plasma boundary of the outer heliosphere lies as ...
Planetary Sciences
Jun 22, 2026
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NASA selected a mission concept to research how space weather and dynamics within Earth's atmosphere influence the space environment and help improve prediction capabilities for impacts on crucial technology, such as GPS ...
Space Exploration
Jun 19, 2026
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Sending a spacecraft to the underexplored planet Uranus is at the top of many planetary scientists' wish lists. But which spacecraft-mounted instruments would be most useful for answering questions about the mysterious ice ...
Planetary Sciences
Jun 18, 2026
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