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Micro- to macroscale perspectives on space plasmasThe Earth's magnetosphere is the most accessible of natural collisionless plasma environments; an astrophysical plasma 'laboratory'. Magnetospheric physics has been in an exploration phase since its origin 35 years ago but new coordinated, multipoint observations, theory, modeling, and simulations are moving this highly interdisciplinary field of plasma science into a new phase of synthesis and understanding. Plasma systems are ones in which binary collisions are relatively negligible and collective behavior beyond the microscale emerges. Most readily accessible natural plasma systems are collisional and nearest-neighbor classical interactions compete with longer-range plasma effects. Except for stars, most space plasmas are collisionless, however, and the effects of electrodynamic coupling dominate. Basic physical processes in such collisionless plasmas occur at micro-, meso-, and macroscales that are not merely reducible to each other in certain crucial ways as illustrated for the global coupling of the Earth's magnetosphere and for the nonlinear dynamics of charged particle motion in the magnetotail. Such global coupling and coherence makes the geospace environment, the domain of solar-terrestrial science, the most highly coupled of all physical geospheres.
Document ID
19930065154
Acquisition Source
Legacy CDMS
Document Type
Reprint (Version printed in journal)
External Source(s)
Authors
Eastman, Timothy E.
(Maryland Univ. College Park, United States)
Date Acquired
August 16, 2013
Publication Date
July 1, 1993
Publication Information
Publication: Physics of Fluids B
Volume: 5
Issue: 7 pt
ISSN: 0899-8221
Subject Category
Astrophysics
Accession Number
93A49151
Funding Number(s)
CONTRACT_GRANT: NAGW-1848
CONTRACT_GRANT: NAG5-1558
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other

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