Pushing the Frontier of Solar & Space Physics: Exploration of the Heliosphere and the Very Local Interstellar Medium by an Interstellar Probe

Whitepaper #038 in the Decadal Survey for Solar and Space Physics (Heliophysics) 2024-2033. Main topics: basic research. Additional topics: outer heliosphere; space-based missions/projects; emerging opportunities.

by Pontus Brandt, Benjamin Alterman, Erika Alvarez, Daniel Baker, Stuart Bale, Igor Baliukin, Stas Barabash, Charles Beichman, Jan Bergman, Jean-Loup Bertaux, Piotr Bladek, Michel Blanc, Eric Christian, John Clarke, Alice Cocoros, John Cooper, Robert Decker, Robert DeMajistre, Mihir Desai, Kostas Dialynas, Suzanne Dodd, Stefan Eriksson, Andrei Fedorov, Brian Fields, Lennard Fisk, Glen Fountain, Louis Friedman, Priscilla Frisch, Masaki Fujimoto, Herbert Funsten, Andre Galli, Lisseth Gavilian, Matina Gkioulidou, Randy Gladstone, George Gloeckler, Mike Gruntman, Leonid Gurvits, Sonny Harman, Matthew Hill, George Ho, Bryan Holler, Mihaly Horanyi, Timothy Horbury, Silvan Hunziker, Luciano Iess, Olga Katushkina, Sascha Kempf, Kathy Kha, James Kinnison, Marc Kornbleuth, Kelly Korreck, Tom Krimigis, Harald Kucharek, William Kurth, Rosine Lallement, Benoit Lavraud, Paulett Liewer, Jeffrey Linsky, Casey Lisse, Stefano Livi, Werner Magnes, Kathleen Mandt, Majd Mayyasi, Ralph McNutt, Richard Mewaldt, Jesse Miller, Donald Mitchell, Eberhard Moebius, Parisa Mostafavi, Georgios Nicolaou, Romina Nikoukar, Merav Opher, Stephen Owino, Jeewoo Park, Nikolaos Paschalidis, Michael Paul, Larry Paxton, Ferdinand Plaschke, Michael Plumaris, Nikolai Pogorelov, Andrew Poppe, Elena Provornikova, Romana Ratkiewicz, Seth Redfield, Daniel Reisenfeld, Kurt Retherford, John Richardson, Edmond Roelof, Kirby Runyon, Abigail Rymer, Daniel Santos-Costa, Nathan Schwadron, Steinn Sigurdsson, Jonathan Slavin, Todd Smith, Justyna Sokol, Luca Sorriso-Valvo, Linda Spilker, Sarah Spitzer, Karl Stapelfeldt, Veerle Sterken, Alan Stern, Robert Stough, Pawel Swaczyna, Adam Szabo, Jamey Szalay, Drew Turner, Janet Vertesi, Jan-Erik Wahlund, Chi Wang, Joseph Westlake, Robert Wicks, Robert Wimmer-Schweingruber, Brian Wood, Peter Wurz, Philippe Zarka, Michael Zemcov, Eric Zirnstein, and Qiugang Zong

Published onJul 31, 2023

The white paper describes the science enabled by an Interstellar Probe and its pragmatic mission implementation for launch in the 2030’s.

Pushing the Frontier of Solar & Space Physics: Exploration of the Heliosphere and the Very Local Interstellar Medium by an Interstellar Probe.pdf