Habitable Zones & Global Climate

Principles Of Heliophysics: A Textbook On The Universal Processes Behind Planetary Habitability

By Keith Cowing
Status Report
astro-ph.EP
March 28, 2024
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Principles Of Heliophysics: A Textbook On The Universal Processes Behind Planetary Habitability
A habitable world and its parent star — Astrobiology.com

Heliophysics is the system science of the physical connections between the Sun and the solar system. As the physics of the local cosmos, it embraces space weather and planetary habitability.

The wider view of comparative heliophysics forms a template for conditions in exoplanetary systems and provides a view over time of the aging Sun and its magnetic activity, of the heliosphere in different settings of the interstellar medium and subject to stellar impacts, of the space physics over evolving planetary dynamos, and of the long-term influence on planetary atmospheres by stellar radiation and wind.

Based on a series of NASA-funded summer schools for early-career researchers, this textbook is intended for students in physical sciences in later years of their university training and for beginning graduate students in fields of solar, stellar, (exo-)planetary, and planetary-system sciences.

The book emphasizes universal processes from a perspective that draws attention to what provides Earth (and similar (exo-)planets) with a relatively stable setting in which life as we know it could thrive. The text includes 200 “Activities” in the form of exercises, explorations, literature readings, “what if” challenges, and group discussion topics; many of the Activities provide additional information complementing the main text. Solutions and discussions are included in an Appendix for a selection of the exercises.

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Karel Schrijver, Fran Bagenal, Tim Bastian, Juerg Beer, Mario Bisi, Tom Bogdan, Steve Bougher, David Boteler, Dave Brain, Guy Brasseur, Don Brownlee, Paul Charbonneau, Ofer Cohen, Uli Christensen, Tom Crowley, Debrah Fischer, Terry Forbes, Tim Fuller-Rowell, Marina Galand, Joe Giacalone, George Gloeckler, Jack Gosling, Janet Green, Nick Gross, Steve Guetersloh, Viggo Hansteen, Lee Hartmann, Mihaly Horanyi, Hugh Hudson, Norbert Jakowski, Randy Jokipii, Margaret Kivelson, Dietmar Krauss-Varban, Norbert Krupp, Judith Lean, Jeff Linsky, Dana Longcope, Daniel Marsh, Mark Miesch, Mark Moldwin, Luke Moore, Sten Odenwald, Merav Opher, Rachel Osten, Matthias Rempel, Hauke Schmidt, George Siscoe, Dave Siskind, Chuck Smith, Stan Solomon, Tom Stallard, Sabine Stanley, Jan Sojka, Kent Tobiska, Frank Toffoletto, Alan Tribble, Vytenis Vasyliunas, Richard Walterscheid, Ji Wang, Brian Wood, Tom Woods, Neal Zapp

Comments: 429 pages, 121 figures, and 200 “activities” in the form of problems, exercises, literature readings, and “what if” challenges; V2.0: activities modified; added ‘solutions’ to selected activities; clarified text and corrected typos; added subject index; V2.1 added Activity hyperlinks and corrected typos (see ‘Version history’ in the manuscript)
Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR); Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
Cite as: arXiv:1910.14022 [astro-ph.SR] (or arXiv:1910.14022v4 [astro-ph.SR] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.1910.14022
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Submission history
From: Carolus Schrijver
[v1] Thu, 31 Oct 2019 03:31:25 UTC (11,888 KB)
[v2] Tue, 18 Jan 2022 00:47:08 UTC (11,917 KB)
[v3] Tue, 27 Sep 2022 13:16:22 UTC (18,586 KB)
[v4] Wed, 27 Mar 2024 17:55:53 UTC (18,587 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.14022
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