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A physicist at the right place at the right time: It was 1957, and Russia started the space race with the launch of the first artificial satellite, Sputnik. Its payload: a beeping radio transmitter to prove its presence. Four months later the U.S. one-upped it: Van Allen developed a miniature science payload for Explorer 1 to measure any radiation. To everyone's surprise, there was something to measure. "His discovery of the Van Allen [radiation] belts was the first major scientific discovery of the Space Age," said Ed Stone, former director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which built Explorer 1. "The discovery was unexpected, and that's what made it so exciting. It set the tone for the further exploration of space by revealing how much there was to be discovered." The discovery created a new science specialty: magnetospheric physics. Van Allen continued his collaboration with JPL, working on the Pioneer and Voyager fly-by missions, the Galileo probe to Jupiter, and the current Cassini mission to Saturn. And he still managed to remain a college professor into his 70s, and was so good People magazine named him one of the top 10 college professors in the U.S. He died August 9 from heart failure at age 91. From This is True for 6 August 2006 Suggestions for further reading:
 List Price: $199.00 Amazon Price: $199.00 Editorial Review: This collection of papers will address the question "What is the Magnetospheric Cusp?" and what is its role in the coupling of the solar wind to the magnetosphere as well as its role in the processes of particle transport and energization within the magnetosphere. The cusps have traditionally been described as narrow funnel-shaped regions that provide a focus of the Chapman-Ferraro currents that flow on the magnetopause, a boundary between the cavity dominated by the geomagnetic field (i.e., the magnetosphere) and the external region of the interplanetary medium. Measurements from a number of recent satellite programs have shown that the cusp is not confined to a narrow region near local noon but appears to encompass a large portion of the dayside high-latitude magnetosphere. It appears that the cusp is a major source region for the production of energetic charged particles for the magnetosphere. This book will be of great interest to scientists in Space Physics as well as to those working in research organizations in governments and industries, university departments of physics, astronomy, space physics, and geophysics. Part of this book has already been published in a journal.  By: Charles F. Kennel List Price: $150.00 Amazon Price: $150.00 Editorial Review: The magnetosphere is the region where cosmic rays and the solar wind interact with the Earth's magnetic field, creating such phenomena as the northern lights and other aurorae. The configuration and dynamics of the magnetosphere are of interest to planetary physicists, geophysicists, plasma astrophysicists, and to scientists planning space missions. The circulation of solar wind plasma in the magnetosphere and substorms have long been used as the principle paradigms for studying this vital region. Charles F. Kennel, a leading scientist in the field, here presents a synthesis of the convection and substorm literatures, and an analysis of convection and substorm interactions; he also suggests that the currently accepted steady reconnection model may be advantageously replaced by a model of multiple tail reconnection events, in which many mutually interdependent reconnections occur. Written in an accessible, non-mathematical style, this book introduces the reader to the exciting discoveries in this fast-growing field.  By: James A. Van Allen List Price: $24.95 Amazon Price: $24.95 Physical Signatures of Magnetospheric Boundary Layer Processes (NATO Science ... List Price: $309.00 Amazon Price: $309.00 Editorial Review: The Earth's magnetosphere is part of our environment, and physical processes in the magnetosphere and coupling between the solar energy stream, the solar wind, and the magnetosphere are important to our understanding of our environment. Variations in the electromagnetic and particle energy output of the Sun have a significant effect on global changes. The energy transfer mechanisms at the dayside magnetospheric boundary layers and their ionospheric signatures may be even more important to solar--terrestrial research than the nightside processes. The dayside boundary layer and the polar cusps are the Earth's windows to outer space.  List Price: $399.00 Amazon Price: $399.00 Editorial Review: The Fourth International Conference on Substorms (ICS-4) was held at Lake Hamana, Japan on March 9-13, 1998. This volume represents a snapshot of substorm research as of 1998. The proceedings address the following key questions: What are the major expansion phase activities seen in various regions? What triggers the substorm expansion onset? What are the roles of waves and microscopic processes in large-scale substorm processes? What is the relationship between global convection and substorms? What is the role of the inner magnetosphere during substorms? For each of the five key questions, the current status of observational and modeling efforts in the field is presented in the invited and contributed papers. This volume will foster communication between magnetospheric and high-latitude ionospheric physicists and those scientists who are working primarily in the area of the thermosphere and low-latitude ionosphere. |
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