STFC Consolidated Grant: Plasma environments in the solar system

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This consolidated grant supports a programme of STFC-funded research into the physics of various plasma environments within our solar system. The programme is thus divided into four distinct projects, the aims of which are as follows:- Project 1 aims to determine the extent to which internal magnetospheric processes disrupt the solar wind control of large-scale magnetospheric dynamics and ensuing space weather, by considering phenomena that decouple the solar wind-magnetosphere-ionosphere system.- Project 2 will investigate lunar dust charging and dynamics as well as collective behaviour of dusty plasmas applicable to other bodies in the solar system (e.g. Saturn's rings, comets). This will be done by further development of a 3D particle-in-cell simulation developed at Lancaster that will include all relevant forces, distributions and fields to fully capture the physics. - Project 3 will exploit data from Mars- and Saturn-orbiting spacecraft to study magnetic flux ropes, a phenomenon linked to the loss of planetary atmospheres from unmagnetised bodies, to understand their role in solar-planetary coupling.- Project 4 will identify how energy from the Sun affects Saturn, through the study of Saturn's auroral emissions observed by Cassini and the Hubble Space Telescope under the extremes of solar cycle activity.