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.
Researchers at Northumbria University have used the most powerful space telescope ever built to answer one of the longest-standing puzzles in planetary science—why does Saturn appear to spin at a different speed depending ...
Astronomy
Mar 27, 2026
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High-energy particles called galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) bombard unprotected objects in space, often causing damage. Earth, however, is protected by its magnetic field, which creates a protective shell around the planet that ...
Our Milky Way's halo of hot gas is warmer to the "south" than the "north" because of an internal combustion engine-like effect that is compressing the gas like a piston, a new study has found. Computer simulations reveal ...
Astronomy
Mar 26, 2026
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Pulsars are ultra-dense, rapidly spinning, and highly magnetized remnants of dead stars. They act like cosmic lighthouses, sending out regular pulses of radio waves and sometimes gamma rays in beams that sweep across the ...
Astronomy
Mar 25, 2026
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"Project Hail Mary," the Ryan Gosling-led adaptation of the best-selling sci-fi novel from Andy Weir, is being praised for putting the science in science fiction. Although aliens, sun-draining microorganisms and galaxy-spanning ...
Astronomy
Mar 20, 2026
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How fast can a galaxy build ordered magnetic fields spanning thousands of light-years? Existing theories say several billion years, but observations of galaxies in our universe imply shorter timescales. In a study published ...
Astronomy
Mar 18, 2026
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One particularly well-known fact about the moon is that it doesn't have much of a magnetosphere to speak of. There's no blanket to protect it from the solar wind ravaging its surface, blowing away its atmosphere and charging ...
Planetary Sciences
Mar 16, 2026
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We all know that stars radiate light and much more. But radiation belts can also surround many other celestial bodies, such as planets. These belts do not generate particles themselves—the belts receive them from nearby stars—but ...
Planetary Sciences
Mar 10, 2026
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A new study by researchers at the SETI Institute suggests that stellar "space weather" could make radio signals from extraterrestrial intelligence harder to detect. Stellar activity and plasma turbulence near a transmitting ...
Astronomy
Mar 5, 2026
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For the first time, the Tibet ASγ Experiment has successfully measured magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence on scales below one parsec (approximately 3.3 light-years) within the gamma-ray halo surrounding the Geminga pulsar ...
Astronomy
Mar 4, 2026
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