Recent Excitation, Charge Exchange, and Lifetime Results in Highly Charged Ions Relevant to Stellar, Interstellar, Solar and Comet Phenomena

Recent JPL absolute excitation and charge exchange cross sections, and measurements of lifetimes of metastable levels in highly-charged ions (HCIs) are reported. These data provide benchmark comparisons to results of theoretical calculations. Theoretical approaches can then be used to calculate the vast array of data which cannot be measured due to experimental constraints. Applications to the X-ray emission from comets are given.